


Through the Forest and Out to the Sea

by theotheralissa



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 01:51:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4372565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theotheralissa/pseuds/theotheralissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A wall runs between two lands, on one side the forest and the other the sea. The legends say it can't be crossed but if the will is strong and the wind blows just right maybe one can find their way to the other side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the Forest and Out to the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Big big big massive thank you to my lovely [muffinsome](http://archiveofourown.org/users/muffinsome) who held my hand and supported me while I spent 8 months writing this! <3333 It would have been impossible for me to finish this without you <333 It was originally supposed to be for NaNoWriMo 2014 and I didn't finish in a month nor did I make it to 50,000 words but here it is anyway <3

At the end of the river next to the lake there is a thick patch of trees. Not enough to be called a forest, but seems too many to be left nameless. However the patch of trees stands there without a name. A few houses are scattered around, but only one has any traffic coming in and out. 

The Ninomiya House, as it says outside on the mailbox, is the only house around the small patch of trees worth coming to from far away. Although the son, Kazunari, would say that The Aiba House is worth visiting too. Around the area, to the far ends that reach end of the forests, travelers come here for one reason and one reason only. 

The music. 

Kazunari sits up in his room at the top floor of the house every day listening to the notes drift out, up and away. His mother crafts them and his sister catches them in a net before they fly off too far. Kazunari is only six years old and he hasn’t made his first note yet, but his mother can tell there is some music inside of him that wants to come out. She tells him that every day, tells him that she’s waiting. 

At first, Kazunari tried to find the notes - under his bed or behind the bookshelf. He didn’t find any there so he went wandering outside and looked under rocks, in holes in the ground or in the branches of the trees. But he never found any there. 

“You have to be patient,” his mother told him. “They’ll come out when they’re ready.” 

Downstairs in the main room there is a harp, a couple of violins, a saxophone, a guitar, a set of drums, a flute, a couple of trumpets and a big, grand piano. 

At the age of six, the piano seems to be the biggest thing in the world. Kazunari can’t see over the top of it and he can just barely sit on the bench without using a box as a stepping stool to get up there. But once he does he feels like he’s on fire. He sets his hands down and presses into an ivory white key, but no sound comes out. 

“You trying that again?” his sister asks, pushing aside the box he’d used to climb up to the piano bench and giggling at him as he struggles to get down. 

Kazunari scoffs. One of these days the music will come out. Mom said so. Masaki said so too. 

There are two curiosities in Kazunari’s life. The first being the music. The second, a fairly recent curiosity, is the borderline between his land and the next. 

He’s heard stories about it - some legends and tales that seem far too big to believe. A dragon made it with a huge breath of fire, or a whale swam up onto the land and left a huge mark there traveling from one sea to the next. There are picturebooks and stories and while Kazunari does have a big and bright imagination, he also knows when it’s time think realistically. 

The music has been a curiosity ever since the day Kazunari was born. He’s used to that one. But the borderline, that’s only been since early winter when his mother told him that in the summer she’d take Kazunari and Riisa to see it. 

“It _was_ a dragon,” Riisa says. “Kotomi at school told me it was and she told me her great great grandfather saw it.” 

Atsuko smiles at her kids sitting on either side of her at the table. She’s prepared a hot stew even though winter is ending and spring is starting to add color to the landscape. Transitions are difficult and she’s got two growing kids. 

“It’s just a wall,” Kazunari says. 

Riisa shoots him a look. 

“It’s a wall that a lot of people built,” Kazunari says. “I don’t know why though, but it wasn’t a dragon or a whale or that weird three headed monster in the comic book.” 

“Kazu,” Atsuko says, sharply. 

“You’re no fun,” Riisa whines. 

Kazunari picks at his stew, but doesn’t finish even though his mother prods him. He runs back upstairs to his room when she’s finally finished bothering him and under his bed he takes out a book full of musical scores. It belonged to his grandfather, or someone told him that before. He never met his grandfather and he doesn’t know how to read music nor can he make it, but every time he feels a little lost or a little confused he comes up to his room and opens up this book. The notes seem to drift on the page. They’re stuck there so they can’t get out like the ones his mother makes. Instead they’re in a state of near suspension - still moving around on the page but they aren’t strong enough to jump right off. 

Kazunari runs his fingers over the notes and they ripple away like fish in the water. 

“I’m going to play you someday,” Kazunari says to them, even though this seems to make the notes even more wary of him. 

In Riisa’s room, she’s probably drawing pictures of the borderline. She’s been doing that ever since he could remember. No one has ever crossed it, at least not as long as his mother could remember, but Riisa says she’s a born explorer and she’s going to be the one to cross. 

Masaki has ideas about it too and when Kazunari tells him his mother is taking him to see it he nearly jumps right off of the planet. 

“You gotta take me with you!” he says. 

“What’s the big deal about this thing?” Kazunari asks, genuinely wondering if there is something everyone else sees that he doesn’t. 

“It’s amazing!” Masaki says then he runs away before Kazunari can even ask him why. A few seconds later he returns holding a book and heaving heavy breaths. 

He shoves the book into Kazunari’s hands. It’s big and looks heavy but it’s actually light when Kazunari holds it. The cover is a deep blue and there is silver lettering on the front that Kazunari can’t read. 

“It’s the old language,” Masaki says. 

More than dragons or giant whales, that sparks Kazunari’s interest. 

When he opens up the book, the pages are old and stiff. They even smell old and though the book isn’t heavy he feels the weight of it and sits down. Masaki sits down beside him and guides Kazunari’s hands to the right pages. 

They open up the big book together and there is a map. On one side is the West where Kazunari and Masaki live and on the other side is the East land where no one on this side has been for generations. 

“It’s sealed with magic,” Masaki says. Kazunari pulls in close so he can hear every one of Masaki’s words. 

“What kind of magic?” Kazunari asks, wide eyed. 

“Grandpa didn’t tell me everything,” Masaki says. “But he said that they created it with the old magic so there isn’t anyone today who can break it. It was made so it would never be broken.” 

“How come?” Kazunari asks. 

Masaki shrugs. 

“You don’t know?” Kazunari asks. 

“It’s like...” Masaki says, propping the book up again because it’s about to fall out of their laps. “There were two kinds of magic that didn’t mix well so they stopped them from ever touching again.” 

“Hmm,” Kazunari says. 

He thinks about his mother’s magic. His grandmother and great grandmother had the same magic in them. So does Riisa and so does Kazunari. 

“Do you have magic?” Kazunari asks. 

“I do!” Masaki says, jumping to his feet. The book falls all the way into Kazunari’s lap and when all of the weight is on him it doesn’t feel so light anymore. 

Masaki stretches out his hands. “Watch this!” he says. He’s looking out in front of him at a gate that goes all around the field. His face contorts and he grunts a little. 

Kazunari laughs. “You look funny,” he says. 

But Masaki says “Shh! I’m doing it.” 

“Doing what?” 

Nothing is happening. Nothing is changing. Nothing is growing or shrinking and nothing is moving in a way it shouldn’t be. 

“Did you see it?” 

Kazunari tilts his head to the side. 

Then he finally sees the after effects. Leaves from the trees go swirling around and the blades of grass all kneel forward then stand upright again. 

The Aiba family house sits next to the Ninomiya house as it’s been for generations. Atsuko creates the music, Riisa catches it before it flies too far, but Masaki’s mother and father keep the air calm and steady so that a stray gust of wind doesn’t come along and carry the notes far away. 

Kazunari leaps up too and the book lands in the grass. 

“Ah!” Kazunari says. 

“Don’t worry,” Masaki’s mother says, appearing behind Kazunari and startling him a little. Her voice sounds a little like a breeze, he thinks, and she lifts up her hand and beckons for the book to come back to her. It drifts just above Kazunari’s head and he doesn’t take his eyes off of it until it lands there in her hand. 

Kazunari beams at both of them. But it soon turns into a frown. What if the magic inside of him never comes out? 

He’s still wondering the same thing months later when they’re finally getting ready to take their trip to the borderline. It’s Atsuko, Riisa, Kazunari and Masaki. The last of whom begged and pleaded even though Kazunari knew from the start his mother would give in. 

The trip is two days walk and it’s not one that most children go on. Parents are mainly content to tell their kids about the borderline and rely on picturebooks and legends. But Atsuko wants Kazunari and Riisa to see it first hand. 

Masaki comes with a backpack that looks much bigger than him. Atsuko warns him not to lean forward too much, but even so he goes rolling down a hill. 

They camp overnight under the shelter of a big canopy shaped rock and Riisa tells ghost stories while Atsuko grills their dinner. Maski puffs his chest out and tells her it’s not scary, but later in the middle of the night Kazunari finds Masaki tugging at his sleeping bag and asking to be let inside. Kazunari unzips it and they huddle there together while Masaki insists it’s because of the cold and not because of the story. 

Riisa laughs when she finds them like that in the morning. She kicks them and they go rolling into a tree in a little tangle of limbs. 

“Riisa,” Atsuko says, warningly, but Riisa just giggles. 

“When I get bigger...” Kazunari says, threateningly. 

“You look like an angry kitten,” Riisa laughs and skips over to help Atsuko pack up the sleeping bags so they can get on their way. 

It’s a clear morning. A perfect day to see something magical, Kazunari thinks, and even though he knows this wall wasn’t made by a dragon or anything like that a part of him hopes, just a little, that one of those legends is true. 

Halfway through the day, Atsuko begins to tell the story. 

“It was a very long time ago...” she starts. 

Kazunari probably should be listening, but instead his mind wanders and he only hears bits and pieces of the story. 

The trees here are a different color than they are near his house. Here the leaves are tinted purple and the birds are a dark color and sometimes they come darting out. 

“...Lots of people give lots of reasons but it was built for our protection...” Atsuko goes on. 

One of the birds comes out and tries to take a sandwich right out of Masaki’s hand. Unluckily for the bird, Masaki is too fast, but unfortunately for Masaki he’s still growing and getting adjusted to his lanky limbs so the sandwich goes flying into pond where the fish gobble it up. 

“...No one has crossed for a long time,” Atsuko continues. “Not from here to there and not from there to here...” 

“But watch,” Riisa says, confidently. “I’m going to be the first.” 

“Or me!” Masaki says, standing up on his tip toes which makes him just slightly taller than her. 

Kazunari doesn’t think he’s interested in trying to get to the other side. This side is where the music is right? What if they don’t have music on that side? Or what if they have someone already crafting it and Kazunari won’t have anything to do. At least here he can play with Masaki while he waits for his power to grow inside of him. Masaki is lucky, Kazunari thinks, watching the way the blades of grass swirl around with every step he takes. 

“So I want you to see it for yourself,” Atsuko says, her story coming to an end. “I want you to decide what you think it is.” 

Atsuko is interested in history. But she’s also interested in helping to build the future. 

When they arrive there it’s early evening and the sun is getting ready to disappear into horizon. The plan is to walk part of the length of the wall. It’s impossible to walk the entire length on foot, but they can at least get a feel for the wall by spending the afternoon near it, set up camp for the night and then head back in the morning. 

It is exactly what Kazunari thought it would be. A wall made of cold steel. He touches it and has to pull his hand away, colder to the touch than he thought it would be. It looks unassuming and grey, almost like it ended up here naturally with vines growing up and over in some parts and small wildflowers dotting the base with reds and yellows and pinks. 

Kazunari touches it in different places. In some places it’s cold but in some it’s hot. In some the steel feels solid just like it should feel, but in some places it’s a little squishy. He pokes at it and it springs back at him. 

In some places it’s tall, in some places shorter. At the highest points, Kazunari would have to sit on Atsuko’s shoulders to be able to barely peek over the top. But in other places it only comes up to his shoulders and just a little hop or a boost from Masaki (or Riisa if she’d help him) would let him see right over the top easily. 

They set up camp in the evening and this night Riisa is too fascinated by the wall to tell any ghost stories. However it’s colder than the night before so even without the added chill of Riisa’s stories Masaki ends up in Kazunari’s sleeping bag anyway. 

In the middle of the night, Masaki kicks Kazunari out of a dream and wakes him up. Kazunari tries to kick back, but even though the kick lands Masaki doesn’t even stir. It’s too cold to get out of the sleeping bag, but Kazunari pokes his head out just a little when he hears a sound. It’s distant, but he’s always had a good sense of hearing. 

It sounds like voices and some dry grass cracking underfoot. It’s not dangerous, especially not with his mother and Riisa here, but Kazunari feels a weird feeling in his chest, like something is bubbling and boiling in there and he has to get out and see. 

He wraps a blanket around himself and slips on his boots. His shadow from the campfire looks menacing - a big round blob perched on top of two twigs. He tries to be as quiet as possible as he tiptoes to the wall and when he gets there he sees what almost looks like a mirror reflection. 

A campfire is there and three sleeping bags. 

“Bet they don’t have a Masaki over there kicking them out of bed,” he grumbles to himself. He could get into his mother’s sleeping bag, but Riisa would tease him about it. He could get into Riisa’s sleeping bag - maybe she’d kick him straight over the wall and all of the mysteries of this side or that would be solved all at once. 

He sighs and gets back into his sleeping bag, Masaki’s legs already searching for something to kick so Kazunari helpfully obliges. 

“Ouch,” he says. 

“It’s in the tree...” Masaki mumbles. 

“Eh?” 

“The tree,” he says, sleepily. “With the grapes over there and the teddy bear is on the boat and--” 

Kazunari puts his hand over Masaki’s mouth and goes to sleep. 

In the morning, Kazunari wakes up to the sweet smell of his mother’s sugar toast. He drifts out of his sleeping bag to find all three of them gathered around the fire, already eating breakfast. But his mother has saved a slice of toast just for him and she hands it to him on a plate with a warm cup of cocoa. 

It’s not quite cold enough to see your breath, but when Kazunari drinks the cocoa and breathes a tiny shadow comes out. 

Masaki tries it too and nearby the leaves of a tree rustle. His wind is getting stronger every day. 

“Mom,” Kazunari says in a small voice. “I saw someone last night.” 

“You did?” she says. 

“On the other side of the wall,” Kazunari whispers like it’s a secret that he’s not allowed to say out loud. 

But all at once the secret reveals himself. From far away, Kazunari sees three plump backpacks bobbing over one of the short parts of the wall. 

“Over there!” he calls out loudly and Riisa and Masaki both turn as several birds come flying out of the tree. 

Kazunari looks up at his mother apologetically because she might scold him now for making a fuss. But she looks anything but angry. 

“Kazu!” she says, standing up and nearly dropping her plate. “You did something amazing.” 

“I did?” he says, standing up straight. It’s not often he hears those words. 

His mother stands up and starts waving enthusiastically and then across the wall Kazunari can see a small hand doing the same. 

They all run to the wall and the people across the way do the same. It’s a woman, Kazunari can see when they get closer. A woman, a young girl about Riisa’s age and someone else. Kazunari can only see a small tuft of hair. 

“Hello!” Masaki calls out and two hands wave. 

The tuft of hair starts bobbing up and down until finally the Riisa’s age girl bends down to lift him all the way up. 

A little round face comes up over the side. 

Two hands waving on that side. Three hands waving on this. 

Kazunari tugs at his mother’s sweater. 

“I want to meet that funny looking one,” Kazunari says, pointing to the little face and then a little hand comes up and starts waving too. 

Kazunari finally brings his hand up and does the same. 

Riisa is the one who starts running. Then Masaki follows and Kazunari and Atsuko after that. There must be a place where the wall is thin and low where at least their voices can reach across. The three on the other side follow her lead and all seven of them are running into a place that they don’t know and might not even be there. 

The wind is rushing against them almost like it’s trying to keep them from finding the spot but Masaki runs on ahead and spreads his arms out and the wind billows on either side so that they can run through the calm air as the leaves swirl around in spirals all around them. 

On the other side, Kazunari can hardly see the three people there, but now what he sees is a rainbow of color and all three of them darting in and out of it. All it does is make his blood boil a little more. He regrets any moment of indifference before - his mother was right. He wants to know. He has to know. 

“Ah!” Masaki cries out as he reaches an impasse of fallen trees. They can’t run any further and on the other side it looks to be a big pile of rocks in the way. 

So they start climbing. All seven of them in unison. Masaki and Kazunari scale the pile of tree trunks and the three on the other side start climbing up the rocks. They get to the top thanks to Masaki’s calm air and the people on the other side reach the top too. 

“Hello!” Atsuko calls out. Masaki carries her voice on the wind so it reaches. 

“Hello there!” a faint voice comes over just barely making it and landing in Kazunari’s ear like a light drop of rain. 

Kazunari waves to the funny looking one then gets next to Masaki. Maybe if he calls out while he’s standing next to Masaki the sound will carry. 

“Hey!” Kazunari calls out, waving with both of his hands. 

He can almost see it. The way his word of greeting travels through the air, curving upwards and between some tree branches and then diving back down again right to the funny looking kid. 

Kazunari looks at the kid for a moment, squinting and trying to make out his expression and then he sends a “hey you!” flying over on the wind. 

They stay like that for a while, just waving and calling out to each other. Atsuko finds out that the other woman is named Matsuyo the girl is Rie and the funny looking boy is called Satoshi. 

“Satoshi,” Kazunari says. The word tastes funny in his mouth. It tickles a little when he says it, just a slight tingly feeling on his tongue. 

The plan had been to head back and arrive at home before the sun went down, but they stand so long at that spot that the sun peaks and starts to fall down over the horizon and the only time they realize it’s gotten dark is when they have to start squinting to see the three on the other side. 

Matsuyo sends signals with bright colors and Atsuko can send over a melody. They’re communicating in a way that Kazunari can only dream of. Rie and Riisa and Masaki are having a conversation all of their own but Satoshi has hardly moved there from that one spot. 

Kazunari sits down on top of a tree stump and puts his chin in his hands. He tries to focus. If he had eyes like a hawk he’d be able to see what Satoshi looked like clearly. He wonders if those birds in the trees can see him clearly and if they’d tell him about what they saw if he asked. 

He wants to send over a melody the way his mother does and he wants to see what happens when Satoshi reacts. But try as he might he can’t conjure up even a single note in stacatto. 

So he just says the name instead. “Satoshi,” he says. “Satoshi.” Like if he says it enough it might become a melody on its own. 

It gets darker and darker and Atsuko softly tells Riisa that they have to make camp for the night because now it’s too dark to travel. Masaki is still blowing small tufts of wind towards Rie when Kazunari comes up behind him and tugs on his shirt. 

“Masaki,” he says. “Can you do this for me?” 

Masaki turns around halfway through releasing a small breeze and it ends up nearly blowing Kazunari off of the rock at that close range. He holds on tight to Masaki’s shirt and Masaki giggles. 

“What is it?” he asks. 

“Can you send something to that kid?” Kazunari says, pointing at Satoshi. 

“Sure,” Masaki says. Kazunari thinks he looks all grown up when he says it. Kazunari wants to grow up too. 

“Want to be my friend?” Kazunari says into Masaki’s hand. Then Masaki lifts his hands up to his lips and blows the question towards Satoshi. A couple of birds swoop down and Kazunari wonders if they can steal words the same way they can steal a sandwich right out of your hand. But it travels steadily and surely and once it reaches Satoshi he looks up and out and right at Kazunari. 

It’s almost too dark to see but the last thing Kazunari sees in the setting sun is Satoshi’s reply. 

He nods yes. 

The next morning they leave early but not before they make a promise to the three on the other side. They’ll come back the next spring and meet there again. In the same spot at the same time when there is still a chill in the air but the trees and grass are trying to start to turn green again. Masaki sends a goodbye from Kazunari on the wind over to Satoshi and Satoshi gives a little nod of his head. 

Kazunari wants to see him again. 

\---

Spring turns into summer. 

The Ohno family live on beach in a house that looks like it might easily float away if the anchor comes loose. It looks like a boat, but it isn’t a boat. It’s rooted into the ground like most other houses, but the way it keeps changing color makes it hard to imagine as a real house made of wood. 

There are splotches of color on the beach all around it. Reds and greens and blues. If one watches the house long enough they might see a spray of color come out of one of the windows and land there in the pale sand. 

Satoshi is seven years old and his magic appeared early. When he was only five he was coloring with crayons when suddenly one of them just melted in his hand. At first he cried because he thought he’d broken it, but then his mother came and found him held him tight telling him he was the most special boy in the world because he’d made a crayon melt. 

He made another one melt and then another one after that and his mother was so excited by it that she invited everyone in the neighborhood over for dinner and a party that lasted well past Satoshi’s bedtime and well into the night. That was the first time he met Sho, a shy boy from just around the bend. 

Sho’s family doesn’t have any magic, is what Rie told him, but in the same breath she told him that they say they don’t have any magic but she thinks they have something hidden there. Sho’s father is the mayor of the town so maybe they want to keep their cards close, she’d said. 

So the first time Satoshi met Sho he asked him if he had any hidden magic and that had just made Sho look down and turn red like a strawberry. That’s his power, Satoshi thought. He can make himself look like a strawberry. 

Two years later, Satoshi controls his magic better than most people three times his age. He can drain the reds and purples from the petals of a flower and make glossy paints and he can take blue patches from the sky and the sea and stir them together until they harden into a pastel. He borrows from one place and colors another. That’s why the house is always changing. 

Satoshi is seven but he wants to be eight. When he’s eight he’ll be able to meet Kazunari again - his new friend. 

“I wish I’d gone with you...” Sho says. He’s speaking to Satoshi from behind a stack of books and all Satoshi can see is his legs poking out under the table. “But mom said I had to study.” 

“You can come with us next time,” Satoshi says, taking a fingertip size worth of violet from Sho’s open book on the table. It’s a nice shade of violet and just a tiny bit. Sho probably won’t even notice it isn’t there anymore. 

“But I’ll have exams,” Sho moans. “Mom wants me to get into the best school but I’ll probably have to move away.’ 

Satoshi frowns. He doesn’t want Sho to move away. 

“Why don’t you just study here?” Satoshi says. “With me and mom.” 

His mom teaches him every day. She teaches him about mixing colors. Taking them and putting them back or putting something more vibrant in its place. He’s seen her take the green out of the leaves of the trees, polish it, and return it so the trees are so bright and green they’re almost outshining the sun behind them. 

Even at the age of seven Satoshi already knows he’ll be taking over the family business. Rie has talent and she’ll be taking over too, but her talent is nothing like Satoshi’s. He could probably paint a picture in the sky if he tried. That’s something his mom always says and he’s tried a few times but the most he could do was turn the tip top of a tree a light shade of pink. He wants to draw a picture on a cloud someday. 

Sho studies all day and all night but sometimes they have time to play. Sho’s parents don’t always like it when he hangs out with Satoshi because sometimes he comes home with splashes and drops of color all over his homework or his new shoes but it doesn’t stop him from coming around and it doesn’t stop him from coming along to the wall when they travel there the next year. Although it does require that he does a lot of begging. 

Satoshi’s bedroom has a bed and a couple of other pieces of furniture, but besides that there are mountains and mountains of sketchbooks. Some that he’s filled for fun and some that have assignments his mother gave him. He doesn’t study the way Sho does but his mother doesn’t always let him just relax and draw in his room or spend the day out lying on the beach. 

But lately he’s been drawing pictures of Kazunari. He drew some pictures of all four of them and then he drew some pictures of himself, Kazunari, Masaki and Sho all playing together in the sand. He wants to give it to him when they meet at the wall so he folds it and puts it inside of his backpack. 

Sho, Rie and his mother are already lined up outside and calling for him to come downstairs and he runs out so fast that he gets halfway down the stairs of the front porch before he realizes he doesn’t have any shoes on. 

“Do they have beaches on the other side of the wall?” Satoshi asks his mother as they set off. They walk through the soft sand until they get up to the hill. They have to cover a lot of space between here and the wall and most of it is hard craggy rocks and ups and downs. 

“I wonder,” Matsuyo says. 

“Some people say it’s like a mirror,” Sho says. “I read it in a book.” 

“But then wouldn’t there be two of each of us?” Rie asks. 

“Maybe there are,” Matsuyo says with a faroff look that she gets every time she talks about the wall. Satoshi likes to draw but Matsuyo likes to paint and she often paints pictures of what she imagines the other side of the wall to be. They can all see the forest there, the thick trees that seem to cover every inch of the other side. But from that side it must seem like this side is nothing but rocks and hills when really beyond that there is a big beautiful sea. 

Satoshi’s looked at her paintings before. She paints possibilities like if the land beyond the forest was just a big, flat expanse of desert. And one where the trees grow taller and taller the further they get away from the wall and the people all live up high in the branches reaching up to the sky. There was a picture where it’s like a mirror just like Sho said, but everyone is riding on giant turtles in the water. And another one where beyond the forest is nothing but deep dark sky and stars and planets reaching into the distance. 

Satoshi doesn’t know what kind of world is over there, but he knows that Kazunari and Masaki are in it. 

They set up camp for the night and Rie and Sho both go to bed straight away. Satoshi usually falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow but this time he’s restless and comes out of the tent to look at the sky and takes his sketchbook with him even though there is nothing to see with save the moonlight. But when he comes outside Matsuyo is already there sitting on the edge of a curved rock. 

He thinks about drawing her. The way her dark figure blends into the night sky in contrast with the pale rock is something his hands itch to sketch right when he sees it. Instead he closes his sketchbook again and goes to sit next to her quietly, just leaning against her and she puts her arm around him without missing a beat. 

“Do you think they’re coming?” Satoshi asks. 

“I hope they are,” she says. 

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small envelope. 

“Most people ignore the wall,” she says and Satoshi curls up into her side to listen to her story. “Most people ignore it because it’s been there for so long they’ve forgotten it’s there.” 

“I know it’s there,” Satoshi says. 

“That’s because you have big dreams in that little head,” Matsuyo says, ruffling Satoshi’s hair. He smiles against her touch. 

“I drew a picture for my friends,” Satoshi says. 

“And I wrote a letter for mine.” 

“Can I see it?” 

“Sure,” she says. “Can I see your picture?” 

He hands her the sketchbook and she hands him the envelope. Her writing doesn’t look much different from her painting to him. Watercolors cover every inch of the paper, but when he looks closer he can see a story there. All seven of them are building a bridge from one side of the wall to the other. 

“Will I be able to play with them?” Satoshi asks. 

She looks out in front of her. Satoshi isn’t sure where she’s looking exactly and it takes a long time for her to say anything at all so he folds up the paper and places it neatly back in the envelope exactly the way she had it before. 

“Yes,” she says, her voice echoing in the quiet night. “Yes I’m absolutely sure of it.” 

They arrive at the wall the following morning. The same spot as the year before. Satoshi recognizes the shape of the rocks and the way the trees bend on the other side. All of them go running when they reach the promised place - Satoshi with a sketchbook in his hand and Matsuyo with an envelope in hers. Sho and Rie run behind them and all four of them are carried so fast by their feet that their bodies can hardly keep up. But when they get there no one is on the other side. 

“Hmm,” Matsuyo says, standing up on her tiptoes to try to see even further. She isn’t very tall but she’s taller than the rest of them. She reaches as high as her toes will take her, looking out as far as she can see beyond the trees. She calls out each one of their names. But no one comes. 

Satoshi sits down on a small rock and Sho sits there beside him. 

“They’re coming,” Satoshi says. Even in one of the pictures he drew all of them were there and running to the wall. He hadn’t had the intention when he first sketched it, but when he flips through his book and looks at it again he can see the loneliness in the edges of the paper, in the way the colors blend together in a kind of dissonance. 

Twenty minutes go by and the shadows cast by the rocks all shift slightly. Satoshi will wait until they come. Whether it takes an hour a week or another whole year. 

Then a small voice travels into his ear. “Satoshi?” it says. 

Satoshi jumps up and tugs on his mother’s sleeve. “They’re coming!” he says. 

Sho jumps up too and Rie behind him and all four of them are there in a perfect line. 

Masaki comes running first then Riisa after him. Then Kazunari then Atsuko. Masaki is waving his arms above his head and when they finally get there all four of them bend over on their knees out of breath. Atsuko speaks and Masaki moves his hands in a certain way and Satoshi thinks he must be sending the words over to them. It’s much clearer than the last time. Masaki is a little taller too. 

“I’m sorry we made you wait,” Atsuko says. “But we found another place a little down the wall where we think we can get a little closer. Come on!” 

Atsuko beckons with her arms and all four of them start running again. 

Matsuyo follows and the three of them all get in line behind her. On the other side they slip through the thick forest and on this side they weave between the jagged rocks. It takes a while before they reach it and they pass by tall parts of the wall and shorter parts that look like they’d be easy to scale, but in those places a deep canyon opens up just at the base. The path also changes from wide to narrow as they go but they finally reach it after running for almost half an hour. They finally reach a place that looks like it would be easy to just place your hand on the top and spring your body right over. 

“Don’t touch it,” Matsuyo says. On the other side Atsuko warns them about the same. It isn’t just the wall itself but a barrier of magic all around it. It can’t be seen clearly but if you look close enough there is a buzzing energy. 

“No one knows exactly what happens if you touch it,” Matsuyo explains. “Because no one has ever touched it before.” 

Satoshi wrinkles his brow. Surely someone has touched it and that someone just hasn’t told anyone else what happened when they did. He looks across the wall and Kazunari is looking skeptically at his mother as well. Then he catches Kazunari’s eye. 

His mother is speaking but he steps away from her and she doesn’t notice him at first. Satoshi moves the same way, like a mirror image only Kazunari doesn’t look like him. They are about the same height though. 

“Satoshi,” Kazunari says and his voice travels naturally to Satoshi’s ear without Masaki’s help. 

“Kazunari,” Satoshi says then smiles and starts digging through his pockets to find the folded up picture he drew for them. “I brought you something!” 

He pulls out the paper and holds it up high, but from that distance it can’t be seen. He sees all four of them squinting at the paper and though Masaki can help a voice travel on the wind Satoshi can’t help a picture to travel in the same way. He holds it up with both hands in the path of the sun’s rays hoping in vain that it might somehow allow them to get a glimpse. 

Matsuyo also holds the letter she’s written out in her hand, but she realizes at the same time. There isn’t anything she can do. 

“Satoshi,” she says, softly. But he doesn’t lower his hands. He jumps up so he can be taller, higher. The higher he goes the higher he’ll be and the higher he is the more he can show them. The more they can see. He hopes and wishes and watches all of them from there. They look so small on the other side of the wall and he wants them to look bigger. He wants them to be the size they need to be to play games with him - he wants to play hide and seek in the forest and he wants them to come to his side and go splashing in the ocean with him. But they have to be the right size first. 

He jumps up again. Up and down and up again and he feels his mother near him saying his name in a whisper. Satoshi, Satoshi. 

Then a whoosh of wind comes from overhead and the force of it nearly knocks Satoshi’s own breath out of him. He stumbles back and his mother is there to catch him, but when he lands on his feet again the drawing that was in his hands is gone. 

“Satoshi look!” Sho calls out and when Satoshi follows the line from where Sho’s finger is pointing across the wall he sees that his drawing is floating down lazily. Masaki flicks his wrist and calls it over to him with a small breeze and then it’s in his hand and he, Kazunari, Riisa and Atsuko are all gathered around it. 

“Is it for us?” Masaki calls out. Satoshi smiles a big smile and nods but Matsuyo is looking up high up in the sky. 

“Do you see it?” she asks Rie. 

Rie looks up too. Then Satoshi and Sho and far far in the distance he can see something circling and whirling around. A small dot but it gets bigger and bigger coming right towards them until another whoosh of wind carries Matsuyo’s letter right out of her hand. 

On the other side of the wall a small bird delivers the letter gently into Atsuko’s hand then flies away. 

Just like they did the year before they make another promise. One year later in the same place they’ll meet. Right here where the wall doesn’t feel so far and the birds circle overhead. Atsuko and Matsuyo bow at each other from either side and while Rie, Riisa and Sho all wave with both of their arms in the air Satoshi gives a small nod to Kazunari who returns it. 

They start the long journey home and Satoshi takes his mother’s hand. 

“I’m going to marry Kazunari when I get older,” he says. 

Matsuyo smiles and squeezes his hand. 

\---

It’s in the middle of summer when the only relief is dipping in the river and this morning Masaki knocks on Kazunari’s window early when the sun has barely had a chance to peek over the mountain. Kazunari stirs in bed, already sweating from the morning light. 

“Come on come on!” Masaki shouts through the glass and Kazunari rolls off of the bed and when his bare feet touch the carpet he hears an odd sound. 

It’s like a rippling sound, a wave. It’s vaguely like the river but it has a different tone to it. Maybe it’s what the ocean sounds like. He looks over at the corner of his bedroom where the drawing Satoshi gave to him is taped up on the wall. The blue water curls into the same sound as the pitch in Kazunari’s head. 

He moves his hands apart and together apart and together. The tone changes. It goes from high to low. From tinny to brassy. From deep and rich to thin and reedy. 

Then he runs. 

“Mom!” he calls out, running down the stairs so fast he almost stumbles. 

He runs into Riisa on the way down and they both go toppling over, but he scrambles back up to his feet and runs to the kitchen then to the living room. He keeps moving his hands together apart together apart anything he can do so he doesn’t lose the tone. 

He runs out the front door past Masaki who calls out his name and a soft _Kazu_ comes and wraps around his hands. He mixes the two tones together - the wave and the sound of Masaki’s voice on the wind. It’s a new sound, one he’s never heard before. He untwines them and catches another sound. This time it’s the sounds of his footsteps on the sand. The tone is so light and crunchy that it tickles his ears and he laughs all the way down to the river where he finds his mother there hanging laundry on a long line between two trees. 

“Mom!” he calls out, running straight into her where she catches him in her arms. “Mom listen!” 

He moves his hands, first moving the sound of the wave between his fingers, then mixes in the sound of Masaki’s voice and then that crunchy sand. It’s too clumsy to be a melody but too deliberate to be anything else. Atsuko holds him tight and spins him around and around and then holds him by the shoulders and kisses him on the forehead. 

“Kazunari,” she says. “Play me a song.” 

He can’t stop smiling and his face hurts and even that ache in his cheeks takes on a tone of its own. The first song he’s ever played for his mother. The first song he’s ever played for anyone. 

First he moves his fingers and then he pulls his hands into fists, manipulating all of the sounds he’s collected and all of the different sounds in his body waiting to come out. 

“A symphony,” Atsuko says, closing her eyes and he watches the music wrap all around her. When she makes music it comes out all at once from her hands, but Kazunari’s radiates from all over his body, colors and shapes swirl all around wrapping his mother in a tiny funnel cloud of his music. Then when the song is finished it collects into a little ball, no bigger than a marble and she holds it there in her hand. 

“This,” she says, holding it up between her two fingers. “This is very special.” 

Kazunari feels a wave of exhaustion take over his body but when his mother holds his hand he feels strong enough to walk back to the house. When they arrive there she takes the little ball and places it on the windowsill where it catches the light and a prism of rainbows carry the melody softly through the room. 

Atsuko stands in front of Kazunari then lowers down to her knees so they’re at eye level. “If you want to share your music with the world I don’t want to stop you,” she says. “But this one. This one I want to keep.” 

Kazunari nods, beaming at her and behind him Riisa sighs loudly. “I guess I need to get a bigger net.” 

\---

Summer passes and Winter passes again and before Matsuyo realizes it Satoshi has reached his 12th year. 

“It’s getting to be time,” she tells Rie. And Rie agrees. Soon Satoshi will have to decide if he wants to stay by the ocean and hone his craft or if he wants to go out into the world and gather colors from beyond the coastlines and the mountains that surround the town where they live. 

Every year Matsuyo has asked him what he wants to do and every time his answer is the same. 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I want to stay close to him.” 

In a manner of speaking, this is the closest to Kazunari that Satoshi will ever be. At least in this house on the beach he can visit the wall once a year and see Kazunari there. 

Out in the world he’ll be able to find blues and pinks and greens that he’ll never see here. She knows it and Rie knows it too but Satoshi wants to stay here and when he reaches his 13th year she knows she’ll ask him again and he’ll answer her the same. He’s even tempered and it’s easy for him to decide what it is that he wants. 

In the spring they go back to the wall to meet Kazunari and his family and Masaki again. He turns to his mother while they’re on the way there and tells her that in the summer he wants to come there again by himself. Soon he’ll be 13 and he’s ready to travel alone.

With the help of the bird who is always there to meet them he sends an envelope over the wall to Kazunari. Two pieces of paper are inside. One is a drawing of all of them together climbing a big leafy tree. The other is a note. “Meet me here in the summer,” it reads. “Just you.”  
From across the distance of the wall he sees Kazunari give a single nod. 

“He said yes,” Satoshi says, and Matsuyo places a warm hand on his shoulder. 

___

A long, long time ago - even longer than anyone can remember - a small egg sat atop a tree. None of the animals in the forest knew what laid it or where it came from. Or what was going to hatch out of it. For a while, the animals approached it curiously. None of them got too close. And it stayed there on the tree for longer than it should take for any egg to hatch. 

Summer passed and fall and winter and spring and the egg still sat there, unhatched, untouched, until a little mouse decided he could take it no more and scurried up the tree to take it back to his hole for dinner. 

Despite the mouse’s size, the egg felt light when he carried it down the tree. It sat comfortably in his fur and when he reached the bottom he congratulated himself on a job well done, ignoring the scolds that came from the animals all around him. 

“You shouldn’t take what isn’t yours!” the snake hissed. 

“It’s placed in the tree and it belongs there!” the lion growled. 

And as the angry shouts of the animals came one by one the egg started to rock and move and shake until it was shaking so hard the earth started to move beneath it. 

“Now look what you’ve done!” the goat bleated. But before the animals could close in on him the egg cracked and a thousand birds came flying out. So many that for a moment they covered the sky dark as night and then they flew to all corners of the world, watching and protecting every land they flew above - the only being that can pass from one side to the other. 

This is the story told in all of the children’s books on both sides of the wall. But it’s a story that makes Jun laugh the first time he hears it and then every time after that he just grins slightly to himself in awe of the amazing stories that humans are capable of telling each other. 

When he first got his wings, he thought he’d never learn how to use them. It took a while for him to move his wobbly legs and take off in flight, but once he did it was a beautiful thing - seeing the world like this. The dark craggy rocks and the lush green forest and the thick line running between them that no one could cross except for the birds. 

Jun was a boy once. A boy of only seven when he crossed the wall. Now he’s bigger and must be older than seven, he supposes. And this year when the snow melts and the flowers come out and show the world that it’s spring again the summer will soon follow and that’s when his friends will come to see the wall. 

They might not call him friend. But it’s what he is. He delivers the letters and pictures from one to the other. That Masaki boy can move the wind and help them to speak, but Jun can do the same with a well timed flap of his wing. 

He circles the place where the boys vowed to meet. He supposes they don’t know it’s him who has met them all these years. They might think it’s any number of birds or they might think it’s coincidence. But it’s always been him all this time. He knows about the promise they made, Kazunari and Satoshi. And he knows they’ve promised to meet alone so Masaki won’t be with them and that means it’s of the utmost importance that Jun is here to relay the messages.

Jun flies proudly, beak in the air, and excitedly because, unlike the other birds, he remembers well what it was like to be a human and if he had the opportunity to return to that state he might not turn it down outright. Among the other birds there is a sense of pride. When they become birds they can’t return home to their families so they make nests and live here in the trees. It means they live among other birds, those who were always birds to begin with, and after years of that life they don’t think about going back. 

But Jun thinks about it sometimes. When no one is looking, sometimes he changes shape and runs around on his legs between the trees, up the hills and down again. 

Now he flies high in the air looking out for Satoshi on one side on the wall and Kazunari on the other. It’s Satoshi who comes into view first and Jun takes flight just above and behind him. 

\---

Kazunari leaves at dawn and it takes him three days to arrive at the wall. He’s thirteen now, old enough to travel on his own, but at night time when he’s all by himself he wishes Masaki were there to share the sleeping bag with him. He almost can’t sleep without the sound of Riisa’s snoring. And this late at night he wants his mother to reassure him, of course Satoshi will come. Of course he remembered this time this day. He’ll be there just across the wall with a painting for you. If he thinks about it hard enough, his thoughts take the form of his mother’s voice and he’s soothed to sleep with only the sound of the wind in the grass around him. 

The next morning he takes his bag and slings it over his shoulder after he’s finished breakfast and packed up his camp. A few birds circle overhead as they tend to do closer to the wall and Kazunari watches as one curiously seems to be moving in a straight line on the other side.

He looks up and flicks his wrist and a sound comes out, just a low and warm note that sounds like a good morning to him but he’s not sure what it sounds like to a bird. To his surprise two birds fly close behind him as if following the sound. 

“Do you like it?” he smiles. Then he flicks his wrist again and a light fluttering note comes out in a pleasant sound to match the pleasant weather. The two birds keep following after him and it feels like they’re propelling him along as he makes his way closer to the meeting spot. 

It’s afternoon when he finally comes close. It’s just past a thick of trees and around the bend. Curiously, the same bird on the other side is flying straight and steady. He looks back to see that the two birds are still following him there. Maybe it’s following Satoshi, he thinks, feeling light and warm in his stomach when Satoshi’s name passes through his thoughts. 

“Almost there,” he says aloud. 

\---

Satoshi looks behind him. No matter how many times he looks it’s the same bird following, has been all afternoon. He moves right and left and the bird follows him in kind. He leaps over a stream and the bird seems to take a leap too. Then he stops at a hill and circles all the way around and watches the bird make a circle overhead. 

“You can come down!” Satoshi calls out. 

The bird doesn’t move downwards, so Satoshi starts to walk off the path again to make sure the bird is following him. It is. 

“Come down!” Satoshi calls out again. But again the bird doesn’t come any closer. 

Satoshi lifts his hands up and focuses just around where the bird is flying. It starts as a small pinpoint of light but then it opens up like a flower blossom, colors shooting out this way and that and a rainbow bursts out. The bird seems a little startled at first, but then delighted, flying in circles around the burst of color and flapping its wings happily. 

Satoshi smiles and calls out again. “Come down!” he says. “Come on!” 

The bird finally looks down at him and Satoshi lowers the rainbow and watches as the bird follows. When it gets close to his hand he holds up his fingers. “Don’t worry,” he says, letting the rainbow colors fall and splash onto the sand and holding his hand there outstretched for the bird to land on it. 

It does. 

“Do you want to come with me?” Satoshi asks. 

The bird seems to nod its head and Satoshi is satisfied with the answer so he starts to move down the trail a little faster and the bird hops up on his shoulder. The sun is high in the sky and it’s almost the meeting time. He doesn’t want to be late. 

“I’m meeting a boy there,” Satoshi says. “He’s thirteen, a little younger than me, I met him when I was seven and I want to get married to him when I grow up.” 

The bird doesn’t move, just stays there on his shoulder, clutching the fabric of Satoshi’s shirt with its talons. 

Satoshi goes on. 

“I make colors,” he says. “I’m not as good as my mom, but she says someday I’ll be better than her. And when I met Kazunari I wanted to make enough colors to make a picture for him. I haven’t gotten it right yet, but I’ve been trying. Do you want to see?” 

The bird seems to cock its head a little and Satoshi slows down to rest against a rock just for a moment. He takes out his canteen and has a drink of cool water then offers some to the bird who drinks happily out of his cupped hand. 

Then he reaches into his bag and pulls out a long tube. It’s made of tanned leather and it’s hard and sturdy. When he removes the top, he can easily pull out a curled sheet of paper. Whenever he meets Kazunari he brings a picture for him, but this time it’s more than just a picture. 

“It’s too big right?” Satoshi says, sheepishly. The bird doesn’t reply, but Satoshi unrolls the paper. He has to stretch both of his arms out on either side before it’s open all the way. 

The picture, at first, isn’t easy to understand. Even for Satoshi himself. He has to tilt the paper to the side a little, then he tilts his own head to side too. 

“When I saw him the first time,” Satoshi says. “I knew I wanted to marry him.” 

On the paper is every color that Satoshi knows how to make. There are spots of the white paper showing through, saving a space for the colors Satoshi doesn’t know how to make yet. It’s not ready yet. Not the whole picture that it’s meant to be. From one angle it looks like a snowcapped mountain and from another it looks like a deep, deep lake. He looks up at the sky again. 

“Ah!” he says. “We have to go!” 

He carefully puts the picture back in his tube and tucks it safely away in his bag. The bird hops down from his shoulder and flies close behind him, wings catching the wind to keep up with his quick pace. 

Is Kazunari waiting there on the other side? Is he looking up at the sun too and running as fast as his feet can carry him? 

Just ahead he can see the big rock with the flat top where he’s always met Kazunari before. It looks like a shadow against the sunlight from here, but when he gets closer the details will come into view. Normally he’s there with his mother, with Rie and Sho-chan. But this time he’s by himself. He’ll be standing on that big flat rock alone with just Kazunari’s figure on the other side of the wall. 

In the distance he can see two birds flying straight and sure and he looks behind him to see his bird friend still following him. It’s Kazunari, he thinks. He’s coming. 

He winds around on the path that leads to the flat rock. It’s curved and sometimes moves at sharp angles, a path that the people made as best they could through the jagged land. Something akin to stairs leads up to the top of the flat rock and Satoshi can still see the two birds flying on the other side. His own bird follows him up to the top. 

Then he can see him. Small at first, but getting bigger as he runs to where his side of the wall meets Satoshi’s. 

He waves big with both hands and Kazunari does the same. 

\---

Kazunari has been working on this all spring. He’s gathered the sounds and spun them into notes. He’s weaved those notes together and turned them into melodies. He’s made a song that he wants to play for Satoshi and in his pocket he keeps a small pouch with the notes inside. 

Riisa helped him to gather them and his mother preserved them so they’d be able to travel with him over the distance to the wall. When he finally sees Satoshi there, just a small figure with two big waving arms, he wants to release it all at once. He’s practiced sending the sounds over a distance with Masaki. He stood at one end of the forest and Kazunari at the other and he sent the melodies through the grass and between the trees. The first time all it did was tickle Masaki’s ear, but with enough determination and practice he was able to bend the melody right where he wanted it to go. Masaki could hear it slightly, just as a faint echo, but it was there. “And since it’s for Satoshi,” he’d said. “Maybe he’ll be able to hear it more clearly than me.” 

Kazunari waves with one hand and closes his other hand around the pouch in his pocket. 

He looks up and the two birds who followed him there have flown away, but there is still a bird hovering just above Satoshi. He watches as the bird slowly swoops down and then lands on Satoshi’s shoulder. Every time they come here, a bird helps to send things across. Pictures and letters. Kazunari brought a letter from his mother to Satoshi’s and Satoshi’s mother has probably done the same. The one thing that’s missing this time is Masaki. He’s always here to help carry their voices along on the wind, but this time they can rely only on the birds. 

Since the two birds that followed have gone back to the trees, Kazunari closely watches the bird on Satoshi’s shoulder. He sees Satoshi reach into his bag and pull out a big sheet of paper from what looks like a tube. The bird takes it in its beak and flies over the wall to where Kazunari is standing. “Thank you,” he says and then the bird lands on his own shoulder. He smiles and unrolls the paper. All of the colors on the page seem to leap out at him and he can’t make out what the picture is but it’s warm and soft and beautiful. His fingers grip the edges of the paper, and a shade of light blue rubs off on his finger. He laughs a little. “Sorry Satoshi,” he says. 

But the sound of his finger moving on the paper makes a raspy tone that he takes into his collection. It’s like a sound mixed with color, even warmer and softer than one without the other. 

“Can you send a message over to him?” Kazunari asks. The bird blinks at him and holds up its wing. 

“I’m going to put it on my wall,” he calls out. In his room the wall is full of pictures that Satoshi sent to him. The first one is still there at the center. The picture of everyone together when they first became friends. 

The bird moves its wing and a strong gust of wind carries his voice over to Satoshi who nods happily. 

“I want to show you something!” Kazunari calls out again. This time the bird helps without him asking, but he calls out so strongly that his voice carries and the bird doesn’t need to send quite such a gust of wind. 

“Here goes,” Kazunari says to himself. 

He steels himself, holding his hands in fists at his sides and takes a breath. Satoshi is so far away he can’t make out his features, but he can see that he’s standing there still, motionless, all of his attention is focused on Kazunari. He reaches into the pouch and pulls the ribbon so it opens and the notes spill out. 

The bird flies around excitedly and without meaning to creates a small gale of wind, blowing the notes this way and that. “Wait!” Kazunari calls out after them, trying to draw them back, but some have already scampered into the grass and some are swirling in little clouds high in the air. 

“Come back!” he calls. It’s difficult to make them listen. Sounds have their own will and he knows that once they’re released he has to let them go, but he wasn’t ready, it wasn’t time. The bird hops around frantically, picking up the notes in its beak that it can reach. Kazunari takes them and watches the bird fly up to collect the notes that have floated up to the sky. He sifts his fingers through the blades of grass. Some notes have settled there and he puts them back into the pouch and then the bird comes diving down again just as Kazunari whirls around and they meet there with a great crash. 

“I’m sorry!” someone says. “I’m so sorry! I’ll get all of them for you just let me look around.” 

When Kazunari turns there isn’t a bird there anymore. There isn’t anyone or anything there but a boy. 

“Ah,” Kazunari says. Momentarily forgetting where he is or what they’re doing here. He watches the boy on his hands and knees in the grass, collecting notes one by one. He pulls them from the flowers, from the rocks. From a tiny puddle of dew that formed in the morning and spent the rest of the day in a patch of shade. 

“Ah!” Kazunari says again. He turns around just in time to see a note hopping along a tree branch and he quickly climbs up the thick trunk and plucks it from a leaf before it gets too high. When he comes down the boy gives him a handful of notes that he drops into the pouch. Almost all accounted for except for three. “Three more,” he says. The boy nods. 

Kazunari finds one moving slowly on the ground riding on the back of an ant. “Sorry,” he says to the ant as he picks it up. He sees another one dropping off into a river, but the current carries it quickly, too quickly for Kazunari to catch up with it. 

“I’ll get it!” the boy says. And just in front of Kazunari’s eyes the boy disappears in a flash and what’s left in his place is a bird. It flies with purpose and dives into the river where it catches the note in its beak and swiftly brings it back to drop in Kazunari’s hand. 

The last one he finds there resting on the paper that Satoshi had given him. The note he made when his finger brushed the paper, resting there on the light blue that it came from. “Come back?” he asks the note. And this one moves by itself and slips into the pouch. 

They’re all back again and Kazunari breathes in relief. 

“I-I’m terribly sorry,” the boy who once was a bird says. “Let me introduce myself.” 

\---

Most birds who used to be humans forget why they became that way. For some, the effort of passing through the wall is too great, takes too much of a toll on them, and they forget from the sheer force. For others, they went through the wall by some chance or some accident. They don’t remember seeing the other side at all and just slip into the shape of a bird without realizing what’s happened to them. Almost all of them gradually lose the memories of their human life. Day by day, year by year, the memories disappear. 

But for Jun, it’s different. He remembers the day he stumbled to the other side of the wall. It was partly accident, partly chance. He remembers all of it. His life as a human from when he was a small child up until now. 

Satoshi watches curiously from the other side of the wall. When Kazunari arrived he was alone but now someone else is with him. It’s a boy, but it isn’t Masaki. Just moments before Kazunari looked as though he’d lost something and Satoshi watched as he searched frantically all around him. But now he’s talking to the boy and doesn’t seem to be looking for anything anymore. 

Satoshi wants to call out, to send him a message, but he can’t now with his bird friend gone. He watches them now because it’s all he can do. Even just to see Kazunari from far away, a small speck in front of the forest backdrop, is enough to satisfy him. He’s here, Satoshi thinks. He came. 

After a while Satoshi sits down on the rock and takes off his bag. He pulls out an apple and starts to take a bite, but he’s distracted by the deep red color and the way it shines when the sun hits it just right. Just when he looks up again, Kazunari is facing him. He’s standing with purpose and has both arms out in front of him. 

Satoshi sets the apple down and stands up again waving with both arms spread out wide. 

Something reaches his ear. 

At first he thinks it’s the wind and then he thinks it’s the sounds of the earth magnified. A fish swimming or a rock rolling down a hill. But it isn’t that. It’s a melody. A symphony. It isn’t a fish swimming, but the splash of its tail and the ripples and waves and water drops that it creates. It isn’t a rock rolling down a hill but every grain of sand it touches along the way. Each one a different tone and a different timbre. 

It’s Kazunari’s song. It sounds like him and feels like him and before Satoshi knows it it’s enveloped him. Somewhere between the ground and the sky he’s here listening to everything. 

When it’s finished he feels soothed. So much that his body sinks back down onto the rock. He opens his eyes again and the bird has appeared on the other side, hovering close to Kazunari’s shoulder. It flaps one wing and Kazunari’s voice carries over to him on the wind. 

“I’m going to get across this wall,” the wind says in Kazunari’s voice. “Then I’ll play that song for you again.” 

\---

Kazunari sets up camp on his side of the wall, Satoshi on the other. At first, Kazunari stays talking to Jun but then he asks him to go and tell his story to Satoshi so he does that. And by the end of that Satoshi can confidently say he’s made a new friend. He’s happy to see Jun when he comes flying over, welcoming him into his tent with a warm smile and cakes he’s brought from home. 

They spend the night like that and the next two days, the three of them together. Jun flies tirelessly between them relaying message after message. But late in the night Kazunari sends his own messages through the air in the form of his compositions. The sound is thin and soft, but Satoshi can only imagine the sounds from a closer distance. He wants to feel what it’s like to be wrapped up in Kazunari’s music. 

Jun flies back and forth, back and forth again and on the end of the third day he seems a little tired so Satoshi offers his sleeping bag and packs up the rest of his things as Jun takes a nap there. All around him is a picture waiting to be painted. He takes out his sketchbook and starts to draw a rough image of what it looks like here. The wall is thick and dark between the two sides, but Kazunari’s little red tent is the perfect splash of color against the backdrop of deep green. When he’s finished with the sketch he slides his fingers along the paper leaving trails of color behind. It isn’t an exact match like his mother could to, but he’s getting closer. 

“Do you think he’ll make it across the wall?” Satoshi asks Jun who is too deep in sleep to hear or answer. He presses his finger firmly against the paper and a spot of red fills out the tent. “Do you think he loves me?” Satoshi asks, considerably more quiet than the first question. Even if Jun was awake he couldn’t know the answer to that. 

Satoshi finishes his picture just before the sun hangs low in the sky changing the colors all around him to deeper shades. He rolls up the paper nice and tight and he nudges Jun softly to wake him up. He sits up sleepily, blinking the nap out of his eyes. 

“I’m going to leave in the morning,” he says. “Can you take this to Kazunari and tell him goodbye for me?” 

Jun nods, taking the paper in his hand. It’s curled up tight, just the right size to fit into his talons. A date is written there, one year from today. They’ll meet here again, the same two tents across the way from each other. The same wall between. 

“Come to my house,” Satoshi says to Jun. “Follow the two big rocks at the end of the river and go straight until you reach the sea. I want... I want to thank you for everything. For being such a good friend.” 

Jun nods again. “I’ll come soon if you’ll give me another one of those cakes,” he says. 

“I’ll tell mom you’re coming,” Satoshi says with a soft smile, watching carefully as Jun turns back into a bird. He’s a deep purple color now when it’s dark outside. But in the light there are flecks of silver and gold in his feathers. Satoshi wants to draw him. 

Jun hops out of the tent with considerably more energy than a few hours ago and Satoshi waves to him until he’s out of sight. 

\---

In the morning, Kazunari packs up and starts on the journey back home. Jun follows him for a little while in the form of a boy. He walks just as gracefully as he flies, Kazunari thinks, and he’s taller than Kazunari and entirely unbirdlike in this state. It makes Kazunari smile. 

“How did you become a bird?” Kazunari asks. 

“I fell,” Jun says. 

“That’s all?” Kazunari asks. “Just fell?” 

“I climbed a tall tree and I fell in the center of the wall and I don’t remember much about what happened next but just after that I was different.” 

“Hmm,” Kazunari says. “If that’s all it takes then I’ll climb a tall tree and do the same as you. I’ll become a bird and fly back and forth as I please.” 

“No,” Jun says, stopping there. Kazunari stops too and waits for him to speak again. “The other birds aren’t like me. They don’t remember who they are, they think they’ve always been birds. They don’t remember their families or friends. They just... live in the trees as if it’s always been that way.” 

“Ah...” Kazunari says. 

“You’ll forget about Satoshi,” Jun says. “And Rie and Sho and Matsuyo. Your sister and your mother and Masaki too.” 

“But what if I’m like you?” Kazunari asks. 

“And what if you’re not?” 

Kazunari looks down. He couldn’t take that risk. “Do you remember your family?” he asks. 

“A little,” Jun says. “But not clearly.” 

“Do you want to be friends?” Kazunari asks. 

“I’ve been your friend,” Jun says. “Since you were small. Well... you’re still small.” 

Kazunari kicks a rock at Jun, but his bird reflexes are quick and the rock doesn’t touch him. Kazunari laughs and Jun can’t help but laugh too. “Not that small,” Kazunari says. 

“I suppose,” Jun says, making a show out of looking down on him. 

Then he remembers. “Oh!” he says and searches all through his pockets. “I almost forgot!” 

Kazunari looks at him curiously. A familiar atmosphere is there between them where he’d never noticed it before. It’s always been Jun delivering letters and drawings and carrying their voices on the wind. He’s always been their friend. 

“Here,” Jun says, handing Kazunari a tightly rolled paper. 

Before he opens it he can already feel the warmth of the colors from inside. It feels darker than his other drawing. And it is. It’s a dark night scene of what Kazunari’s tent looks like from the other side. This is what he looks like through Satoshi’s eyes. Colors by nature aren’t the same as music, but Kazunari’s ears are finely tuned to everything all around him. He can almost hear the way Satoshi’s pencil sketched on the page and the way his fingers moved and filled in the colors. A rhythm to his art. 

“Look here,” Jun says, pointing at the bottom corner of the page. 

The date one year from today. 

“I’ll see you then won’t I?” Kazunari says. 

“I’ll come early in case you can’t find the way,” Jun says. Kazunari remembers the way he followed Satoshi and he bows slightly. 

“Thank you,” he says. 

And they part ways there just as the sun is at its brightest. Warm and sure and ready to lead him back to his home. 

\---

At first, Kazunari isn’t going to tell Masaki about Jun. Not that he wants to keep him from it but because he knows Masaki will drop everything he’s doing and run for the wall in an instant. He has a curiosity that is difficult to contain. Kazunari supposes he doesn’t want to contain it either. 

All the same, Masaki knows that something happened while Kazunari was away. 

“What was it?” he asks. “Did you meet Satoshi? Was he different? Did you meet anyone else? Did you find a new place?” 

“It’s just as I said,” Kazunari tells him a few times. But Masaki knows he isn’t telling the whole story and pokes and prods at him until Kazunari is sure he’s going to bubble over. 

He waits a few days before he tells Masaki, needing some time to swallow all of it himself. If all of the birds in the trees were once people who tried to cross the wall how can they get across without becoming one of them? It’s a new puzzle he has to solve and solving puzzles is Masaki’s specialty. 

When he finally tells Masaki it's in his bedroom with the door closed so he can prevent Masaki from bolting right out the door. He waits three days and by that time Masaki is almost bubbling over.

He first shows Masaki the picture Satoshi drew of the tent. Then tells him a bird brought it to him. Then tells him the bird isn't just any bird, his name is Jun.

"You named him?" Masaki asks.

No, Kazunari explains. He said his name after he took human form and he took human form after he accidentally spilled all of Kazunari's notes and--

"What?" Masaki's eyes grow wide. A big smile forms on his lips. "I knew it! I knew! I knew you were hiding something big!"

"I know you knew," Kazunari grins.

"We have to go!" Masaki leaps to his feet. "We have to go now!"

"Wait!" Kazunari says, heading him off before he can get too far.

Masaki can barely stand still and he groans when Kazunari tells him his plan. First they should go to Masaki's grandfather's library and take all of the books they can carry.

They can only take so many without raising suspicion so Masaki picks them up with a breeze that curls through the bookshelves and they float out the window one by one into Kazunari's waiting hands. They take the books deep into the forest in a place where they'd made camp as children. A place only they know.

Then they open up the book that claims to be a history of everything this side of the wall and that and Masaki leafs through it restlessly. His legs ready to carry him to the wall with or without a purpose.

Masaki and Kazunari spend the next week buried in the piles of books. It’s a secret. From Riisa and their parents. Especially Aiba’s grandfather who hasn’t yet noticed his missing books.

Even their research turns up nothing. There are stories about the wall, about it being built by the people generations before their parents and grandparents and great grandparents. There are other books saying the wall appeared there long ago for the benefit of the world and everyone in it. There are the common childrens stories and legends about dragons and whales. But, though all of the stories illustrate a wall that came to be, none of them can say the exact how, when and why. 

And the books don’t make any mention of the birds. 

“They’re not in this one either,” Masaki says, tossing another book into the pile with the ones they’ve already read. 

Between the times that he’s researching with Masaki and the times that Kazunari is studying with his mother, there is little time for anything else. He wants to tell his mother everything. About Jun and the rest of the birds. It isn’t hard for him to keep secrets, but it’s hard for him to keep something so exciting from his mother. He knows that she’d react much like Masaki, wanting to run to the wall as fast as her legs could carry her. But before he tells her and Riisa about what he knows, he has to know everything there is to know about it first. 

Night time is the only time that Kazunari has to himself and he spends all of the time before he falls asleep looking at the drawings Satoshi gave him. When he moves his fingers on the paper he can make sounds. When he makes sounds he can form them into notes. But there is something different about these sounds. Every color makes a different sounds. The deep, rich timbre of the blue and the high stringy sound of the pink. The yellow of the sun in the sky is a low tone and the splash of the green leaves of the trees is a sharp staccato. 

These notes he keeps for himself in a little pouch near the bed and they settle comfortably together falling asleep there in the pouch just as Kazunari does under his blankets. 

In the morning, Kazunari is awakened by a tapping at his window. It starts out light like a small pebble against the glass, but then it’s a more determined rapping on the glass. 

Kazunari rolls off of his bed sleepily, hardly able to make out the shape outside of his window. The sun is already bright in the sky and Kazunari isn’t ready to completely open his eyes yet. 

Then he realizes it’s a frantic flapping of wings and recognizes Jun’s beak and talons. He pushes the window open to let him in and he’s changed into the shape of a boy just before his feet touch the ground. 

“Kazunari!” he says, running in place as if the flapping of his wings has transferred to another part of his body. He slows down a little when Kazunari doesn’t do anything in response except for let out a yawn. But he can’t completely contain his excitement and begins to pace around the room. 

“You have to come with me!” he says. “You and Masaki too!” 

“Come where?” Kazunari asks blearily. 

“I found something!” he says, turning back into a bird once again and flying out the still open window straight for Masaki’s house. 

Masaki returns moments later breathless and with Jun following behind in flight. 

“We have to go to the wall!” Masaki says then he nearly flops over on top of Kazunari. Jun takes the form of a boy again and Masaki looks up. Jun nods to him for the first time in this body and Masaki nods back to him with that big, excited grin he gets when he’s discovered something new. 

“What is it?” Kazunari looks from one to the other. Something surges through his body from his toes on up. If they found a way to cross the wall he’ll be able to play his song for Satoshi. Just there in front of him using every note he has and they won’t have to be carried on or hindered by the wind. 

“I found a place in the wall,” Jun says, a little breathless too. Kazunari wouldn’t be particularly surprised if Masaki could run faster than a bird can fly. “I found a place that’s... different. Weak.” 

“Weak?” Kazunari asks. He can’t imagine what it would look like or how Jun would know. 

“I saw a pill bug crawl through it,” Jun says. “He came out on the other side and didn’t seem changed at all.” 

“So that means...” Kazunari says cautiously. He doesn’t even let his mind stretch all the way to the end of that thought. It’s too much. Too much to dream for. 

“We can go there!” Masaki says. “We can go to the other side with Satoshi and Rie and Sho!” 

“Masaki...” Kazunari says, shaking his head a little. He wants to share in the celebration but he knows it’s a little too early. And so does Jun as he places a hand on Masaki’s shoulders. It’s the hand of a boy but it still looks soft and Kazunari can imagine it with gentle feathers. 

“Let’s go tonight,” Masaki says. “I’ll get packed.” 

Kazunari nods, but he doesn’t know how to tell his mother and he doesn’t know if she’ll let him go out there again just after his return without a good reason. 

He goes out to the forest behind the tree where they’ve hidden all of the books. He wraps them in a deep green cloth so that they can wait there among the trees until Kazunari and Masaki come back. Jun flies up to a branch and then turns into a boy again, his legs dangling just above Kazunari’s head. 

“You’re not in any of these,” he tells Jun, flipping through one of the books just before putting it inside the cloth with the rest. 

“I guess they don’t know about me,” Jun says. 

“But we know,” Kazunari says. 

“Yeah,” Jun says with a bright smile. “I know.” 

\---

Kazunari’s mother doesn’t really know what to make of him returning to the wall so soon. But he isn’t a boy anymore, she tells him. He stands up tall when he confronts her and she gives her blessing. She only asks that they leave in the morning at first light. 

“I know Masaki is packing,” she says. “And I think I can hear his mother scolding him from here too.” 

Kazunari laughs into his hand and nods in agreement. “I’ll tell him,” he says. But even he feels his feet desperate to take off into the night. 

Instead he spends the night making notes. Some from the sounds around his room and some from the colors in Satoshi’s picture. He tries to make them stronger so that maybe they can make it all the way to the sea and Satoshi will hear a peaceful melody in his ear along with the waves. The thought makes him feel warm inside and the notes take on a rich tone. He makes music until he falls asleep with some stray notes still resting there on his pillow. 

Jun sleeps outside in the trees, but just before the light breaks the sky he comes tapping at Kazunari’s window. Masaki is outside wearing a backpack and waving with his long arms. 

“Goodbye,” Kazunari whispers to Riisa’s closed door and he does the same when he passes by his mother’s room. Then he tiptoes out the door and down to where Masaki and Jun are waiting for him. 

“I wish we could just climb on your back and you could take us there!” Masaki whines at Jun. He’s in the form of a bird so he can’t speak, but he flaps his wing cheekily. 

Kazunari pulls on his backpack and both of them fight the urge to run. If they wear themselves out it will take even longer to get there. They wait until they’re steadily out of town until Jun turns back into a boy. 

“It should only take two days to reach this part of the wall,” Jun says. They’re all walking swiftly and when the wind hits Kazunari’s face he isn’t sure if it’s coming from Masaki’s fingertips. If he let his notes go here would Masaki be able to carry them on the wind all the way to the sea? Could he make a melody that Satoshi would listen to and know he means for him to come to the wall? He starts creating melodies in his head to the rhythm of their footsteps on the dry grass. 

“Once we get there I’ll go to Satoshi’s house and I’ll tell him about the weak spot too,” Jun says. But by that time it will be too late for Satoshi to join them there. Kazunari pats the bag in his pocket full of notes he made from the sounds of the folding paper of Satoshi’s picture. Then a realization comes to him. 

“Can you take something to Satoshi?” Kazunari asks. 

“Of course,” Jun says, bowing his head a little. “I’d be glad to.” 

Kazunari smiles to himself. Tonight when they make camp he’ll arrange the notes so that they’ll come out with the right timing. He wants to be there the first time Satoshi listens to his song, but this is the next best thing. More than anything, he just wants Satoshi to hear it. 

The rest of the way, Jun and Masaki talk by themselves, but Kazunari can hardly hear them. All he can think about is getting there and getting over to the other side. 

\---

Satoshi paints and draws and sculpts. 

When he comes back from the wall he creates more than he’s ever created. His room is nearly overflowing with colors and lines and brushstrokes. He draws the night scene again, similar to the one he gave to Kazunari, then he draws a morning companion to go with it. He sketches every bit of his journey back down to the pebbles on his feet. He draws all of the birds in the air wondering if another one out there is a friend. 

Then he draws Riisa and Masaki and Kazunari’s mother the way he remembered them the last time they met. And he draws Sho and Rie and his mother and every fish he’s ever spotted in the sea. Then he starts to draw things that he can’t see at all. Wind and the dark and the feeling of taking in and letting out a breath. 

“Satoshi!” his mother calls for him. He’s made so much progress now that he’s officially been put to work and they’ve ordered up a big batch of colors in the city. 

“I’m coming!” he calls out, setting down his paint brush and stepping back to appreciate his work. It’s a big leaf. It will soon be finished and then he’ll move on to the next image in his mind. 

Just before he leaves the room there is a tap tapping at his window and he turns around just in time to see the small bird he’d met the week before. 

“Just a minute mom!” he calls out through the doorway and instead opens the window for the bird who becomes a boy once he passes through the windowpane. 

“Can you come with me?” Jun asks. 

“Now?” Satoshi says, setting down his paintbrush. He wants to go to the wall if that’s where Jun wants to go. He wants to go there every moment of every day but he doesn’t know if his mother will let him go when they have an order to fill. 

Jun tells him about the weak spot in the wall. About the pill bug and about how Kazunari and Masaki are there right now. But even if they go it might take Jun only a day by flight but it will take Satoshi at least two. 

“I can’t make it,” Satoshi says, hanging his head. “By the time I get there he’ll be gone.” 

“He’ll be gone...” Jun echoes. It’s true. His mother told him he had to leave to come back the next morning and even if Satoshi runs all the way there he’ll arrive just when Kazunari and Masaki have left. 

“Next year,” Jun says. “In the date on the picture.” 

“The picture...” Satoshi echoes. So many pictures swirl around in his mind but he knows the one Jun means so easily. 

“Next year meet at the weak spot,” Jun says. “I’ll take you there. And I’ll take him there too.” 

Satoshi nods. 

“And this,” Jun says. He still has the small bag clutched in his hand, the one that had been clutched in his talon all the way here. The bag full of Kazunari’s notes. 

Satoshi takes it in his hand and feels the vibration of the notes against his skin. He doesn’t open it now but nods and bows and says his thank yous. And Jun will be here when the winter turns into spring again and he’ll take him to that weak spot in the wall. 

\---

Jun told them a pill bug had passed through the wall, but Kazunari and Masaki have watched three ants pass through followed by a worm and a gnat. None of them seem to lose direction and one of the ants even turned around and walked right back through. 

“This is the place,” Kazunari says. And Masaki looks on with big, round eyes. 

“Should we just... try to climb through it?” Masaki asks. But Kazunari laughs. 

“Unless you can turn yourself into an insect the way Jun can turn himself into a bird,” he says. “I think you’re a little too big to make it.” 

Masaki sighs. If only they could pass through that simply, Kazunari thinks. 

Before Kazunari even realizes, Masaki has started digging a hole in the sand. The ants step aside for him and the onlooking birds seem to hover in the air as well. He clears a big enough space to reach one finger through to the other side. Then he pushes his hand past the barrier so that all but his wrist are on the other side. 

“See!” Masaki says. “See it’s weak we can just pass right through!” 

Kazunari breathes in and out. Is that all? Just move some sand aside and squeeze through? 

Then he realizes. He realizes before Masaki does, but Masaki’s hand is moving this way and that. His finger is pointing up and down and then draws a circle in the sand and brushes it away to draw a triangle instead.

“Your hand...” Kazunari says. 

“My hand?” Masaki says, pulling his arm back where it was, but his hand starts tapping on a rock then picks up the rock and throws it. 

“Are you doing that?” Kazunari asks, slowly. 

“No!” Masaki says. More excited and fascinated than worried. Kazunari is a combination of all three as he watches Masaki’s hand move this way and that, dancing along his arm and then disappearing into his pocket. 

“It’s forgotten,” Kazunari says. 

Masaki can’t help but smile. And Kazunari knows it’s because an amazing thing has happened but it’s also told him the answer that they didn’t want to hear. That if they pass through even this part of the wall they’ll forget who they are. Not just a finger or a hand but everything else that they love. 

Kazunari puts his finger to the stone just above the hole that Masaki dug. He moves carefully and he can feel the barrier with his fingertip. Fine and thin and invisible to his eye. He touches the edge of it but pulls back before his finger can forget. 

Summer, fall and winter pass again. Kazunari and Masaki spend every waking moment of free time looking through the books. One by one, page by page. They draw a timeline and find a missing place in history the same size and shape as the wall, but where did it go? Why was it hidden? 

One book mentions something about birds that fly near the wall, but it doesn’t delve further than that. Just mentions that they tend to be friendly and harmless but that one should leave them alone. 

Kazunari would regret if Jun had left them alone. He wouldn’t have been able to exchange letters or get Satoshi’s pictures. He wouldn’t have been able to send his music to him. He’s going to see Satoshi again in the spring and he’s written another song that sounds like pages turning in a book trying to learn and understanding. Trying to find a way to follow that pill bug through to the other side. 

They’ve come close to giving up on Masaki’s grandfather’s library, down to the last few books. There are three there in a pile. Silver, beige and black. 

“Which one will you pick?” Kazunari asks. 

Masaki takes the silver one. It’s the thickest of the three and his thirst for knowledge is the most unquenchable. The beige and black ones are smaller and put together they are about the same size as the silver. Kazunari takes both of them and starts leafing through. 

The air is cool and while patches of snow are still here and there, the green grass is beginning the great struggle to grow again and the earth will soon be covered in spring. 

Masaki’s hand still moves on its own, but he’s learned to make it cooperate in some ways. If he shouts at it sometimes it gets startled and stops moving. Now his hand is diving into the book moving the pages so fast that Masaki can hardly read them. 

“Wait wait!” he says, but his hand doesn’t stop until it reaches a page almost at the end of the book. 

He looks at it quizzically. “Kazu?” he says. 

Kazunari puts a small ribbon he’s been using as a bookmark between the pages and sets the beige book down on a flat rock. Masaki’s voice is small and trembling and his hand is motioning desperately, finger pointing to the top corner of the page. 

“What is it?” Kazunari says. 

“Look,” Masaki whispers. 

In the corner of the page is a handwritten note. _There are three of me at the Eastern Gate and if you find me I’ll tell you all of my tales._

“What is it?” Kazunari says, so quietly that almost no sound comes. 

“As soon as the snow melts we’re going to find out,” Masaki says, his voice trembling as he closes the book again. 

They return the beige and the black books to the shelves and then all of Masaki’s grandfather’s books are back where they belong. Except the silver one. This one they keep under Kazunari’s bed waiting for the spring to come. 

\---

Satoshi doesn’t open the bag with Kazunari’s notes inside. He wants to and he can feel and hear them moving around. Sometimes a little jingling comes out of the bag and sometimes a sound like a violin string. Sometimes some tap tapping percussion and sometimes just a plink of what sounds like a drop of water. He wants to hear the whole thing, but somehow he doesn’t feel like he’s ready yet. And the little bits and pieces here and there that come out from the bag are comforting somehow. He remembers the promise to meet every time a sound escapes and he keeps the bag tucked against his pillow because whenever he goes to sleep he can swear a soft lullaby travels into his ear. 

The days and nights are long and stretched. He helps his mother put together orders for the city and he sees Sho whenever he isn’t busy with his studies. Sho is studying double because he’s going to come with Satoshi in the spring and they’re going to find that weak spot in the wall together. It’s a secret. Jun is also a secret and Sho’s expression was so priceless when Satoshi told him about Jun that he had to draw a picture of it. 

When winter passes Satoshi spends every day watching for Jun to fly over the horizon. He’s made another picture for Kazunari and another one for Masaki. He has letters from his mother and Sho and Rie to deliver too. 

When the days start to get longer Satoshi packs a bag. The date is decided but what if Jun comes flying early. He’s ready to leave at any moment. Sho packs a bag too and stops by Satoshi’s house every evening after his lessons. They sit on the roof in silence waiting for that small bird to come up and over the trees. 

Then finally two days before the promised day - he arrives. 

“Jun!” Satoshi calls out. Sho looks at him in disbelief like he isn’t really convinced yet that Jun isn’t just a bird like any other. He flies to Satoshi and lands on his shoulder. 

“Well he can’t just change out in broad daylight like this,” Satoshi says. 

“Suppose not,” Sho says, skeptically. 

Jun stays sitting on Satoshi’s shoulders until they go inside and into his bedroom. He’s able to slip past his mother and Rie without them noticing the bird on his shoulder and once they get into the room Jun flaps his wings a couple of times so that he’s in midair. Then he becomes a boy. 

“See?” Satoshi says. 

Sho’s eyes grow big and wide and Satoshi wants to draw him again. It’s the second time this week he’s seen Sho make a face that he’d never seen before. 

“Nice to meet you,” Jun says with a polite bow. 

“Nice... nice to meet you too,” Sho says. 

“Shall we get going?” Jun asks. 

“You’re really real,” Sho says. 

“He’s really real!” Satoshi beams. 

Jun smiles a little shyly. “We met before,” he says. “The first time you came to the wall together.” 

Satoshi watches as the realization crosses Sho’s face. 

“He’s our friend,” Satoshi says. 

“Friend,” Jun repeats, warmly. 

“Let’s go!” Satoshi says, holding up his bag. 

Their bags have been packed and ready so all it takes is Satoshi telling his mother it’s time to go. She nods in approval and gives him her letter for Atsuko and he tucks it safely away in his bag. 

Jun flies out of his bedroom window and waits on a nearby tree for them to come out of the house and around the corner and he stays in the form of a bird until they’re outside of the village.  
“Just to be safe,” he says when he finally turns back into a boy. One moment his wings are catching the wind and the next his feet are gracefully reaching the ground. Satoshi thinks he could never get tired of watching him change. 

Sho makes a face again and Satoshi files it away in his head for later drawing. 

It takes two days to reach the wall. They have to make camp in a different place than usual since this part of the wall is a little further than the usual meeting place. Satoshi packs light, but he has a tube filled with pictures. Some of them are for Masaki, Riisa and Atsuko. But more of them are for Kazunari. Some are pictures of Kazunari and some are pictures of things that remind him of Kazunari. Some are just things that he thinks Kazunari might like to look at: a leaf floating on the water, fried eggs from his mother’s pan, laundry hanging in the breeze. 

He still hasn’t listened to the music yet and the notes move restlessly in his pocket as if they know they’re about to meet the one who made them soon. 

In the morning they have breakfast by a small stream that runs between the rocks. Satoshi takes care to take in every color in this place. Some of them he may not have ever seen before. Even though this is near the normal route they take it isn’t exactly the same and sometimes there can be drastic changes from one step to the next. 

“What is it like from up there?” Sho asks Jun. 

“It’s nice,” Jun says. “It looks like a map of the world.” 

Sho sighs then breathes in in the words. Satoshi knows that Sho spends most of his time at his desk studying. Even going out of his house and around the bend to Satoshi’s is like an adventure for him. 

“Is it different over there?” Satoshi asks. 

“Hmm,” Jun says, hanging his head a little. “Not really. It’s just the same. The only different part about it is the wall.” 

They can see the top of the wall from here. It’s grey and a little twisted looking. Satoshi had never thought it looked particularly ominous, but it does look completely out of place. The trees grow tall and the rivers rush. And the big grey wall stands tall, jutting through the middle like a scar. Some parts of the wall are beautiful and ornamented to look like the entrance to a grand kingdom. But other parts are old and gnarled and look like no has ever been there to care for them. 

It’s one of those old, gnarled spots they’re going to today. Jun hasn’t said as much but Satoshi is sure of it. So when the view starts changing Satoshi isn’t particularly surprised. Near these parts of the wall, the nature doesn’t seem to fare as well either. Rivers run dry and the trees cling desperately to the last of their leaves and branches. Birds like Jun are nowhere to be seen. 

“Is this the place?” Satoshi asks. 

“Just a little further,” Jun says, pointing up ahead. “Past that tree and at the bottom of that hill.” 

Satoshi holds tight to the tube of pictures, so full it might burst. 

\---

Kazunari makes the trip with Masaki. Riisa wanted to come, but Kazunari wasn’t ready to tell her about Jun yet. After this, he thinks. After he finds another piece to the puzzle he’ll tell her, but when he tells her he has to be prepared for his mother to know. 

For now he likes having this secret. It feels like a precious jewel at the bottom of his pocket, shining where no one can see. 

“If we run we can get there faster,” Masaki says. 

“But if we run we’ll tire out and we’ll never make it,” Kazuari replies. Masaki already knows this of course, but sometimes Kazunari thinks that if Masaki were to hit the ground running he’d run around the whole world. 

Without Jun to lead the way they have to remember the path they took last time. Masaki’s hand seems to remember and points left and right when the trail forks. His hand also seems to like a little mischief because sometimes it points up or down. But maybe the hand is just saying this way it’s better to fly and this way it’s better to dig into the ground like a mole. If only they could push past any element that hinders them, he thinks, barely keeping up with Masaki’s pace. 

It isn’t long before they reach the wall. It probably looks a little sad and broken to most people, but to Kazunari it looks like an open door, welcoming him to the other side to be with his friends. All of them together. 

The others aren’t here yet but when Kazunari looks up to the sky he sees a spot in the distance. “Jun,” he whispers, lifting up his finger so that Masaki will see him too. 

“A few hours from here,” Masaki says, squinting his eyes to see the little bird. “We have some time...” 

They look at each other with the same idea in mind. Then quickly Kazunari rummages through his bag to find the silver book. It’s a heavy tome, not at all convenient to bring on a trip like this, but it’s the best clue that they have. His fingers fly to the page with the written message. 

“There are three of me,” Kazunari reads out loud, “at the Eastern Gate and if you find me I’ll tell you all of my tales.

“Is this a gate?” Masaki asks, pointing to the weak part of the wall. 

They are East of the village, but Kazunari doesn’t know if this can be called a gate as such. There is rubble at the base here that maybe could have been a gate at one time. Kazunari pushes a small rock with his toe. All of the rocks here look like a broken piece of the wall and Kazunari wonders if someone tried so hard to get through that they broke it. 

“Three of me...” Masaki says. 

With Jun still at a distance, they spend the time waiting for the others to look for things in threes. They find three trees and three flowers. Then they find three bushes and three rabbits hopping together. Nothing they find points to anyone or anything that wants to tell them tales. 

The sun moves in the sky until it’s afternoon and Jun is in view. 

“Let’s go back for now,” Kazunari says and Masaki lets out a sigh. 

“Three of me,” Masaki repeats to himself. “Three of me...” 

By the time they get back to the weak spot, Satoshi and Sho’s heads are coming up over a hill. 

“Satoshi!” Kazunari calls out, surprising even himself with the way his voice comes out. He sees Jun make a circle in the sky and then dive towards the ground. Then there are three boys coming over the hill instead of two. 

Masaki jumps and they both run to the wall. This place isn’t like the other place at all. The other place is wide and the wall is strong. They have to stand on opposite hills carrying their voices in the wind or with a helpful flap of a bird’s wing. Here they can go right up to the wall and even put a hand through the space there. 

Kazunari feels his chest tighten. It’s the closest he’ll ever be to them. The closest he’ll ever be to Satoshi. He crouches at the hole in the wall and moves his fingers through the grass. He doesn’t even intend for it to happen, but the combination of his fingers movement and the blades of grass make a few notes come out. 

“Ah,” Kazunari says, usually able to make notes with intention but these notes sprout up as if they’ve grown from the grass itself. They dance at his fingertips and he picks both of them up and smiles. “Nice to meet you,” he says. Not something he’d usually say to his notes, but these ones seem to have come to him on their own so it’s only polite to give them a greeting. 

He slips them into a pouch in his pocket and then when he looks up again Satoshi is there. 

\---

Over one hill and down the next. From the time Jun spots the wall to the time they reach it feels long and stretched, but when they arrive there Kazunari and Masaki are waiting for them. 

“It’s here!” Jun says. 

Sho looks around in wonder and Satoshi approaches the wall with caution. Is it really okay to get this close? 

“You can come right up to it!” Masaki says. It’s the first time Satoshi has heard his voice. His real voice without being carried on the wind. He sounds a little different like this. Satoshi approaches with Sho behind him. Jun goes right up to the wall without hesitating, but he can fly back and forth at will. Crossing the wall has long ceased from being a mystery to him. 

Satoshi crouches down. His chest is tight and heavy at the same time and he looks carefully at Kazunari’s face. In the same way he does every time he sees something new, he finds all of the colors there that he’d never seen before. Kazunari’s face has so many colors he’d never seen before. 

“Satoshi,” Kazunari says, his voice a low whisper, but Satoshi can hear it. 

“Kazunari,” he says. “I... I brought something for you.” 

“Other parts of this wall are weak,” Jun says. “We can come up to the wall over by that tree.” He points to a tree about twenty steps away. Sho and Masaki follow him there and Satoshi wonders if it’s because they know that something is welling up inside of him. Something too big and wonderful for him to stand. Something he can only show to Kazunari. 

“This,” Satoshi says, pulling a picture out from his tube and moving to put it through the hole in the wall. 

“Wait!” Kazunari says, just as the edge of the paper has touched the barrier. 

Satoshi pulls back at the sound of Kazunari’s voice and when he pulls back the paper all of the color has disappeared from the edge. 

“We can’t pass through,” Kazunari says with a sigh. 

“Ah...” Satoshi says, but he softens again, smiling at Kazunari. Even with a barrier here it’s the first time they’ve ever been this close. 

“Masaki put his hand through,” Kazunari says, grinning a little. “And now his hand does whatever it likes.” 

Satoshi laughs. “I’ll give the pictures to Jun and he can take them to you,” he says. 

Kazunari nods. 

“I put my finger right up to the edge last time...” he says. 

“Just to the edge?” Satoshi asks, looking down at the hole in the wall where the wind flows freely but they can’t pass through. 

“Like this,” Kazunari says. He places his finger just there at the barrier. “It tickles a little.” 

“Like this...” Satoshi echoes. He puts his finger there too. It feels funny. A tickle just like Kazunari says. 

But right there at the edge, a thin invisible line, Satoshi feels it. 

His finger touches Kazunari’s and makes the feeling welling in him swell up even more. He meets Kazunari’s eyes and they’re wide just like his. Satoshi doesn’t even feel like he can breathe. 

_Do you think he loves me?_ Satoshi remembers asking that question before. A question no one except Kazunari can answer. But even if he doesn’t know the answer to that he does know that the thin barrier here with two fingers pressed against it must contain every color in the whole world. 

\---

They spend two nights at the wall. Kazunari is sure his mother will worry, but it’s important they stay here now. Now that they found something so important. They have a clue and a wish. And a hope so big that it overpowers all of them. Kazunari touched the other side and now he can’t just stop there. 

For the first night Kazunari and Satoshi stay close by the small hole with the rift in the barrier. They touch sometimes and sometimes they just sit there. Satoshi takes a nap with his back to the wall and his feet in the sand and Kazunari just watches him, twirling a blade of grass between his fingers. They’ve decided to stay for two nights, but Kazunari thinks maybe he could stay like this forever, just he and Satoshi and the tiny little space that separates them, tinier than any space before. 

Kazunari doesn’t mean to separate himself from the other three, but something is happening between him and Satoshi that he can’t explain to Masaki even though he’s been able to tell Masaki everything that has happened in his life up until now. 

When he looks at Satoshi he makes notes without even meaning to. He hears sounds he’s never heard before. He watches Satoshi’s pencil move on his sketchpad and the sound of his pencil on the paper leaves notes in its wake. They flutter out from his fingertips and he catches them like butterflies. 

“I never listened to your notes,” Satoshi says. Kazunari isn’t sure if a shy flush is forming on his cheeks or if it’s just the way the sun is hitting him. 

“Really?” Kazunari says. He’s a little surprised. Right when Satoshi gives him a new drawing the first thing he wants to do is look at it. But Satoshi has a quiet patience that Kazunari can see in every line of Satoshi’s sketch. In every stroke of his brush when he takes out the watercolor paints. In the way he smudges the edges when the need to be softer and the way he sharpens them when they need an edge. 

He’s drawing a picture of the hole in the wall, but it’s warm and inviting like an open door. 

Jun and Masaki climb trees together and Sho studies everything around the perimeter of their camp. In the evening they make dinner on either side, grilled fish and fruit that Jun picks from high up in the trees and delivers to each of them. 

“We didn’t see anything in threes from up there,” Masaki says, disappointed. “Jun even flew around for a while...” 

“Maybe it isn’t here exactly,” Sho says. “It could be anywhere in the world couldn’t it?” 

“I suppose you’re right...” Jun says. 

“Can you fly around the world?” Masaki asks with a grin. 

“Maybe I can draw it,” Satoshi says. His voice is soft, but cuts through so that everyone turns to face him. 

“Draw it?” Jun asks. 

“I can draw three pictures,” Satoshi says. “If they’re just the right pictures maybe the one we’re looking for will come.” 

“How do we know what the right pictures would be?” Masaki asks. 

“I can make lots of drawings,” Satoshi says. 

“He can,” Sho agrees. “You should see his room.” 

“You should see his,” Masaki giggles, gesturing at Kazunari. Kazunari hides his face behind his hands a little. He’s put every picture Satoshi gave him on the walls and he can hardly remember what the wall behind them looks like. 

“Then you draw pictures tomorrow,” Jun says. “And Masaki will go climbing over beyond the river and Sho...” 

Jun looks over at Sho, a realization on his face as if he’s feeling the full weight of the wall between all of them. Of course he can fly from one side to the other with ease, but the three of them can’t go together. If only he was a big eagle and could soar to the other side bringing Sho with him. 

“I’ll make a map,” Sho says. “Of everything here and we can study it.” 

“Yes,” Jun nods and Masaki does too. 

“I’ll help Satoshi draw,” Kazunari says quietly. So quietly his voice is almost caught in the crackling of the fire. 

Satoshi’s pictures are better with Kazunari there. Fuller and bursting with life.

\---

In the morning, Jun wakes up with the sun and flies down the river to find some nice high trees for him and Masaki to climb. Some birds are nesting there and he tips his head in a slight bow to them. They never return the gesture, but if they could remember their human lives he’s sure they would. There are friendly people in there and as birds they’re friendly enough too, he supposes. They seem that way anyway as they let him hop on the branches of the tree where they’ve built their nests without trying to chase him away. 

From up here he can see far and wide. The wall is big and imposing from the ground but it looks no thicker than a string when it reaches the horizon. Today, though, Jun sees something he doesn’t think he’s ever seen before. 

At the wall some people are gathered there. A small group of them and another group at the other side. Much like when Kazunari’s family and Satoshi’s family meet there. They call out to each other and wave their arms in the air. Jun feels warm inside when he watches them. There they are, reaching out, and when Jun and his friends find a way to break down the barrier they’ll be able to meet each other too. 

He flies back to find them all awake and cooking breakfast over the fire. Satoshi is sitting next to a stack of paper that he’s pulled out from his sketch book. “So that Sho can draw his map,” he says. And Jun nods in understanding, imagining the layout of the land on the blank pages there. 

Jun follows Sho in the morning and watches him make his map so that he can teach Masaki the same technique to make a map of the other side. Kazunari and Satoshi will search the area to find a clue. Three of me, they’re all thinking, and now they only have the rest of one day before they need to return home. 

Satoshi spends the morning searching away from the wall and Kazunari does the same on his side, but they’re drawn back to that spot where the weak point in the barrier lets them touch. 

Whenever they do that, Satoshi brings a new color out from inside of him and lays it out on the page. Kazunari watches fascinated with the way he moves his fingertips across the paper leaving a new color never before seen in a trail. Has this color never before been seen in the world? Has it been discovered somewhere else? It makes Kazunari think about the world again, how big it must be and how small he is in comparison. How much he wants to learn and find and discover and how he’ll have to get past this wall to do so. 

“How many colors have you made?” Kazunari asks. 

“Hmm,” Satoshi says. “I don’t know.” 

“You don’t keep count?” 

“Should I?” Satoshi blinks. 

Kazunari smiles. “How many have you made since yesterday?” he asks. 

Satoshi flips back through the pages in his book. “Seventeen,” he says, counting each one. 

“I made some notes too,” Kazunari says. 

“Can I hear them again?” Satoshi asks. 

Kazunari lifts up his hands and closes his eyes, bringing up the notes from memory. They play an odd little song all mixed together, but it’s a song that sounds like Satoshi and when he opens his eyes Satoshi is smiling. 

He slides his hand along the paper and two more colors appear. 

Sho and Jun return to the wall around noontime and they all have lunch together before Masaki starts on his trek to map the other side. 

“We have to leave at dawn,” Sho says. It’s especially pressing for him since he has exams just when he returns. 

In the evening, Masaki makes his map while Sho collects all of the information he discovered in the morning. There are a few plants around here that he hadn’t seen before growing close to the base of the wall. By the time Masaki returns at night he’s discovered some new things too, a few insects he’d never seen before and, even more curious, a spot where the wind blows differently. 

“I stood in the middle,” he says. “And it went around me... swirling around until I got a little dizzy.” 

There is something about this area different from what Jun has seen on his travels around the world. 

It’s late at night when everyone has gone to bed when the most curious thing on the trip happens. Everyone has gone to bed except for Kazunari and Satoshi. They sit at the weak spot. Not making music or drawing. Not speaking, but Kazunari hums quietly, a song that Satoshi hasn’t heard before. 

Then something strange happens. A note comes out. It isn’t the first time that one has come out accidentally, but it’s a strange curious note. The sound is thin and gentle and it floats there, close to the wall absorbing the small bits of light around it and lighting up itself. 

“Like a firefly,” Satoshi whispers and unconsciously his finger reaches out to touch Kazunari’s. 

The note takes on a color. It’s a deep shade of purpleish blue, trailing from off of the page of Satoshi’s sketchbook and into the air where the note absorbs it. 

“Kazunari?” Satoshi says. 

“I...” Kazunari can hardly blink, can hardly move. “What is it?” 

It moves close to the wall. Closer and closer until it crashes against it and then it disappears all at once leaving nothing behind. Jun comes quickly in a flutter of wings. 

He flits around this way and that and Kazunari holds his arm out hoping Jun will land on it and calm down. 

“It was a... note and a color,” Kazunari says.

“Right here,” Satoshi points to the part of the wall where it disappeared. 

Jun becomes a boy again all in an instant and touches the part of the wall that Satoshi shows him.  
A small hole has formed there. 

\---

“It was just the size of a pinprick,” Satoshi tells Sho as they make their way back home. 

“I saw,” Sho laughs. He saw it. Satoshi showed it to him. But Satoshi wants to tell him about it again anyway.

“So small you could probably only put a string through it but we did it right?” Satoshi is practically bouncing as he walks and Sho momentarily forgets about his exams and the stack of books that will be waiting for him when he gets back. 

He has access to all of the books in the school library and Masaki told him about how they’d been searching through all of his grandfather’s books and come up with nearly nothing. Nothing about the birds and not much about the wall other than the rules - do not cross it under any circumstance. 

Sho makes it his mission to look through the books in the library, but it has to wait until his exams are over so he agrees to meet Satoshi two weeks later by the entrance to the library. 

Here by the sea the weather is warm all year around, but closer to the wall the seasons change. Summer comes and goes and winter blows in with a chill. Satoshi draws a picture of what it might look like if the beach were covered in snow and when he goes out to the pier to fish in the afternoon he builds a little snowman out of sand. 

In two weeks Sho will finish his exams and then they can try to find if there are any secrets hidden in the library at the school. 

Satoshi spends his days idling around the house and fishing on the pier and thinking about Kazunari and how he has a little satchel in his room with the notes Kazunari made for him. There is a comfort in knowing they are there waiting for the right time for him to hear the song. His mother calls on him to stir up some colors, but it’s a slow time of year now. The summer festivals have come to an end now and the next push will be closer to the new year. 

He vaguely looks around the town for things in threes but he doesn’t find anything except something that’s too common to be a clue. Three blades of grass or three clouds in the sky. That isn’t what they’re looking for and he goes back to waiting patiently for what comes next. 

One week passes and he doesn’t hear from Sho at all. He supposes that’s to be expected because Sho is too busy with his studies right now, but just two days before his exams end is when it happens. Bigger than three blades of grass or three clouds drifting along in the sky. Bigger than that tiny pinhole they made in the wall, the two of them. 

Satoshi begins to notice the satchel moving restlessly on his desk and somehow he knows that means Jun is flying on his way. The notes spent some time carried in his beak and seem to recognize him and Satoshi just has a gut feeling. The notes want to be listened to and Jun is flying here past the drifting clouds 

Satoshi waits until Jun arrives before he lets the notes go. Sure enough he arrives there at the window a few hours after Satoshi first senses it. He’s becoming more aware of the sounds around him ever since touching Kazunari’s fingertip through the weak part of the wall. 

“Hello,” he says, lifting up the window so Jun can come inside. He immediately turns into a boy before his feet reach the ground. He’s gotten taller since the last time Satoshi saw him just months before. He’s getting closer to 18. 

“I wanted to pay a visit though I don’t really know why,” Jun says. 

“You don’t need a reason to come here,” Satoshi smiles and he sits down on the bed where Jun sits down beside him. He sketches a quick picture of a bird sitting on a branch and Jun smiles recognizing it as himself. 

“Can I hear the song?” Jun says, taking the picture in his hands. Satoshi nods. It’s his song, made for him by Kazunari. Just like the drawings he had Jun take across the wall to Kazunari were made for him too. But somehow the notes and the pictures have something to do with Jun now that he’s delivered so many of them back and forth. He’s perched there on the bed looking more like a bird on a treebranch than a boy on a bed. 

Satoshi takes the satchel from the desk and unties the ribbon letting the notes spill out. 

When they do Jun begins to react. He moves his hands around like he wants to fly and then he does just that, turning back into a bird and spreading his wings. The notes play a song that reminds Satoshi of the wall. Hard as steel but with a gentle spot that lets him reach through just slightly to the other side. The song sounds the way Kazunari’s fingertip feels, but it’s more than that. He’s in love with Kazunari. He knew it when he was six years old and he’s never stopped knowing it. And the way the notes echo gently in the room he thinks Kazunari might also be in love with him. 

Jun soars close to the ceiling then when the song has finished playing he lands on Satoshi’s shoulder. Satoshi catches his breath, but it hasn’t ended. Or at least the notes aren’t finished telling their story. They move erratically, something Satoshi has never really seen them do before, and then one of them starts to absorb the colors and light from around it just like that curious accidental note at the wall. 

“It’s happening again,” Satoshi whispers and the note soars out the window leaving a trail of light behind it. Jun follows behind in the air and Ohno hops out the window too, having to maneuver down the veranda without the benefit of wings. 

It flies through the air and Satoshi feels a rush of wind, determined and flying through the air. Jun follows it and makes a circle above where Satoshi is standing as if to say _I’ll go after it_ and Satoshi is left behind with nothing to do but wait. 

\---

Jun flies fast and swift through the air. The note is tireless but Jun has limits and he’s reached every one of them. But he’s not going to lose this note. He maneuvers past branches following the stream of light behind it. It has a sound to it. Light, but rich. Like the sound of a bell from far, far away. 

When he takes a moment to notice where he is he realizes how familiar it is. This is where they were back in the summer. The same place that he’d found before with the weak spot. Now with the little pinhole. It must be where the note is going so feeling confident that he knows the next move he takes a shortcut through a tunnel under a hill that the note doesn’t seem to know about.

He darts past a small village and comes around from the other side and sure enough the note is there to meet him. 

Not just the note. Another one as well coming from the direction of Kazunari’s village. Jun stops at the wall, turning into a boy again so he can take deep breaths and try to regain his strength. 

“You really move fast,” he says to the two notes. They’ve slowed to a stop right in front of the pinhole and that’s when another note appears. Maybe the one from months ago. Jun didn’t have a chance to see where it came from. “Three,” he whispers out loud and then before he can properly catch his breath a bird comes darting out from where the three notes are gathered. 

Without hesitation Jun takes his bird form again and follows after it. It doesn’t leave a trail of light in its wake like the strange notes did so Jun has to follow diligently under the darkening sky. 

It moves fast but graciously not far. Jun doesn’t know how much more his wings can take when the bird slows and lands on a rock. 

He doesn’t know where they are and has never been to this part of the forest. Even here, birds don’t seem to be living in the trees and it seems like such a barren place in the middle of this forest that is otherwise so full of life. 

_Can you speak?_ Jun asks in a way that only a bird could understand. But he hasn’t quite mastered the language of birds, not like the others who don’t even remember the language of humans. 

The bird doesn’t answer him, but pecks at the rock with its beak. Jun flutters curiously around the rock, but isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do or see or understand. He takes his human form so he can use his hands and he touches the surface of the rock, jagged and half covered in moss. 

He moves his hands down and the bird takes to the air, flapping its wings in what Jun can only take to be approval. He starts digging just under the rock and the bird flies in circles all around him. 

“This is it?” he asks the bird. “This is what I need to do?”

The bird still doesn’t answer, but it’s just then that he feels a different texture besides the dirt. 

Smooth and angular. 

Looking up, the bird who led him here is gone. He pulls and old book out from under the rock, dirty and worn with age. 

\---

Kazunari and Masaki run to where the forest begins before they give up chasing the note. They had just been in Kazunari’s room moments before. Kazunari was working on some music for an order that his mother had given him from the city and Masaki was lying on his back looking at a picture book when a gust of wind swirled through the room. 

Kazunari had protested at first, thinking Masaki was messing around, but then a note came flying from his fingertips and moved through the room on the wind leaving behind a sound vaguely like a bell in the distance. 

“I got it!” Masaki had called out, jumping for it, but it was too fast and slipped past his fingers and out the window. And though they tried everything they could the note was too fast. 

They stand there, Kazunari leaning heavily against a tree trunk, and watch the streak of light that followed the note slowly fade. 

Masaki flops down on the grass and looks up with a big sigh. 

Kazunari doesn’t know how long the two of them sit there. He knows somewhere in the back of his mind he needs to go back inside and finish what his mother asked for, but somehow he can’t move. 

“It felt like we were getting there,” Kazunari says quietly. Maybe to himself, maybe to Masaki. 

He picks at the tree bark with his fingers and distantly he hears his mother calling him back inside. 

Then another rush of wind comes fast. Kazunari turns to Masaki at first, but Masaki points up to the sky. A bird he knows can’t be any other bird except from Jun comes towards them like a bolt of lightning. 

“Ah! Masaki says. 

Jun lands there and quickly turns into a boy where he flops down just next to Masaki and struggles to breathe. 

Masaki quickly digs a towel out of his pocket and gives it to Jun who uses it to wipe his brow. “I have to get back to Satoshi,” Jun says between heavy breaths. 

But he can’t go anywhere right now. Not for a while. Kazunari thinks they’re going to have to carry him up into the house while he’s in this state. 

“Kazunari!” his mother calls from inside the house.

They have to move him before his mother sees. He can’t ask him to turn back into a bird. Not when it looks like it’s taking all of his effort just to keep his eyes open. Kazunari and Masaki struggle but eventually get him to his feet and with one of them under each of his arms they move him past the patch of bushes and closer to the house. She can’t see him. There isn’t time to explain and he isn’t ready to tell her. 

“Over there,” Jun says, lifting his arm just a little. “The book.” 

“Book...” Masaki says, then looks back and sees the book resting there in the grass near the tree. He goes back to get it leaving Jun there leaning against Kazunari. 

Then Riisa comes bolting out of the house, not unlike the note that ran away just before. 

“Kazu, mom said you have to--” 

Kazunari can only support Jun with his weight. There isn’t any way to hide him. 

“Who is that?” Riisa asks, tilting her head. 

\---

At first, Satoshi paces. Then after he’s sure Jun isn’t coming back he goes to his house and paces there. Several days pass then several weeks. Sho finishes his exams and Satoshi goes with him to the library every day after that. But he can’t stop looking at the sky and waiting to see Jun in the distance, swooping down to meet him. They did make plans to meet after the winter, but now fall is barely in sight. 

This fall, though, is something Satoshi’s mother is already fussing about. He’s going to be twenty this year. Grown up. And soon he’s going to take over the family business. 

Or that was the plan anyway. At least until they found the wall, the weak spot especially. And at least until he decided that he wanted to be with Kazunari. It’s why he spends day and night now in the library hunched over the books. Because they’re getting close. Not just himself and Kazunari. But all of them. 

Sho works diligently, flipping through every page and marking them with tabs when something interesting appears. He looks for patterns hints and clues. But Satoshi ends up with his eyes closed against the page more than once. He’s working hard at home during the day and looking through books at night. Sometimes when he first opens the cover his eyelids start to feel heavy. He hasn’t even had any time to fish lately or any time to make pictures or colors of his own. Sho lets him sleep. 

Fall turns to winter, which Satoshi knows by the calendar alone since the weather doesn’t change much here by the sea. The books say that they tell the history of the world but it seems that big parts are missing, removed. Like someone reached in delicately and took out the parts that didn’t belong leaving everything else undisturbed. Sho looks through the books like an archaeologist, brushing each word carefully to find the meaning. The one on the surface and the one underneath. Sometimes his eyes hurt and he complains of headaches. Satoshi wishes for the winter to come and go.

His birthday celebration is too much. Satoshi’s mother invites most of the village and lanterns are strung up and around the house. She makes his favorite dinner and splashes the house with all of the colors she knows. In the middle of the party Sho approaches him when he’s alone. 

There are so many guests in the house that the two of them can slip outside for a few minutes before his mother notices. There is a book. It’s strange and green and the cover is scaly like a frog. 

“When you look at this page do you feel anything?” Sho says, opening the book up to a page near the middle. 

Satoshi takes the book in his hands and when he looks down at the page he feels dizzy. Sho is there to hold his arm when he starts to stumble. 

“It happens to me too,” Sho says, closing the book. “It’s a record book of the weather patterns of this area. I can read about every year, ancient and recent, but around 40 years ago, I can’t look at the page without getting dizzy. 

Satoshi touches the book with his fingertips and absently he looks up at the sky. When will Jun come back? 

“Oh and... and this,” Sho says. 

Satoshi expects him to pull out another book, but it’s something else. A small box that’s tied up with a ribbon that Satoshi recognizes as one of his own colors. “Happy birthday,” Sho says. 

Satoshi smiles and unties the ribbon. There is a shiny, silver lure inside. 

“Maybe soon you can fish on the other side,” Sho says. “If there is anywhere to fish there...” 

“There has to be,” Satoshi says and both of them nod to each other in promise. 

\---

Kazunari has to explain to his mother and Riisa exactly who Jun is. At first Riisa promises not to tell anyone, but Kazunari knows she sometimes lets things slip even when she doesn’t intend to and he might not be able to put off telling his mother any longer. 

Riisa helps him and Masaki get Jun into the house, but Masaki keeps the book hidden under his shirt just in case. He wants Kazunari and him to be the first to look at it. 

First they take Jun up to Kazunari’s room and lay him down on the bed. He falls asleep instantly and Riisa runs downstairs and fills a glass of water to put by his bedside for when he wakes up. He sleeps for an hour and then Kazunari’s mother calls them down for dinner and he has to make an excuse for why he hasn’t been able to finish the order today. 

“Tomorrow,” he whispers to Riisa when his mother’s head is turned. But she has a sense for sounds that rivals his own so before either of them tell her he’s sure she probably already knows. 

She does wait, however, until the next day and lets Kazunari approach her on his own. 

Jun sleeps for one week, waking up from time to time to eat. It takes Kazunari about one week to tell his mother the whole story so by the time Jun regains some of his strength she knows all about the birds, the wall, the strange notes and the pinhole and all of the clues they’ve found until now. Except for the book. Though Kazunari figures she may already know about that too. 

Jun sleeps for a second week, this time waking up occasionally to walk around the room. Atsuko makes him get some exercise but he doesn’t have the strength to fly yet so he just walks around the yard a little. He doesn’t say much, but all four of them take turns caring for him. 

Late at night, Kazunari and Masaki stay up and read the book in his room. Much of the history is the same as the books they got from Masaki’s grandfather, but this book has something those don’t. A chapter called “The wall and our history”. It seems at first that they’ve found all of the answers to their questions right here, but curiously when either of them try to read the words they’re struck with headaches and a ringing in the ears and the words on the page don’t travel to their eyes the way they should. 

A third week passes and Jun is mainly awake. He lies in bed some of the time and sometimes he gets up and walks around the house. He still doesn’t speak much and when Kazunari tries to tell him what they’ve learned from the book he doesn’t look or seem well. By that time Kazunari has asked Atsuko and Riisa to look at those pages of the book and it’s the same for them. Unreadable and none of them are able to understand. 

It’s at the end of the fourth week that Jun finally speaks. It’s as if he’s woken up from a kind of hypnosis and he reaches out for Kazunari who is sleeping on a futon on the floor next to the bed. 

“A-are you awake?” Jun asks into the dark room. 

“Yeah,” Kazunari answers quickly. He was under the covers with a light looking at some of the safe pages of the book. Masaki is on a futon next to his, but he’s sleeping soundly. Kazunari gives him a little shove and he quickly wakes up with a groan. 

“There is a map in the book,” Jun says. “Towards the back.” 

Kazunari flips to the back where there are several maps of different parts of the world. “The one with a torn page,” Jun says. 

Kazunari finds the torn page and the map. It looks acceptable enough. 

“The wall runs through that place,” Jun says. “But it’s not written on the map. We have to go there and Satoshi has to come too. We need to go as soon as we can.” 

“You can’t go in this condition,” Kazunari says. “Do we have to go without you?” 

“We have to go together,” Jun says. Kazunari is a little relieved when he says it. “But Satoshi won’t know this place and I don’t think I can fly to him...” 

“We could leave a note at the meeting place with a map for him to see...” Kazunari says, but even he knows the idea isn’t a good one when he says it. That would add days to Satoshi’s travel time and if he doesn’t come ready with the supplies he won’t make it. 

“I... I could...” Masaki says, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “I’ve gotten really good at it you know. The wind. My dad says I’m the best in the family...” 

“Wind,” Kazunari repeats. 

“I’ve never tried such a long distance but...” Masaki says. 

“You can send it there?” Jun asks. 

“I can try,” Aiba says. Somehow in the dark Kazunari and Jun share a look. This is their best chance. 

In the morning, Masaki draws a map on a piece of paper. It’s a little slip, just big enough to ride on the wind. 

“Can you get there on your own?” Masaki asks the slip of paper. 

Kazunari laughs into his hand and Jun smiles against the pillow. He’s still resting in Kazunari’s bed and Kazunari has taken up permanent residence on the futon on the floor. 

“Let’s take it outside and set it free,” Kazunari says. Masaki smiles and it makes Kazunari smile too. It feels good, like some of the exhaustion is leaving him. He hasn’t been doing anything that’s made him particularly exhausted in these last few weeks, but just looking at Jun makes him feel tired in sympathy. 

They go out in front of the house and climb one of the trees together. From the branches at the top it’s still much too far to see the wall and Masaki doesn’t know exactly how to get to Satoshi’s house. But Jun told him the way and about the landmarks he passes on the way there. The big hills and the rocky path that leads out to the sea. 

Masaki whispers something to the paper, but he’s peeking at Kazunari so it’s just to make him laugh. It works though as Kazunari can’t hold it in and Masaki lets the paper go in a small gust of wind from his fingertips. 

They both watch it float away. “How long will it take?” Kazunari asks. 

“If I send it as fast as Jun flies it should be there by the end of the day,” Masaki says. 

“Then we won’t know until...” 

“He’ll be there,” Masaki says, confidently. 

“I’m coming too!” Riisa calls out from the base of the tree. 

Kazunari groans. But it’s all for show. He wants Riisa to be there. He wants everyone to be there.  
They climb down the tree, but Masaki is deep in concentration. All through the day he alternates between closing his eyes tight and moving his fingers, sweeping this way and that, guiding the wind and the little piece of paper on its journey. 

This too takes all of Masaki’s energy so with Masaki and Jun occupied Kazunari and Riisa start to prepare the bags. Three for the boys and one for Riisa. Then as Kazunari expected his mother to say, she tells him that she’s coming too. A relief washes over him when she says so. They’re all going to go together. 

After they’ve had dinner and Jun has gone to sleep, Kazunari and Riisa are in her room with the bags laid out. Masaki comes in, leaning there against the doorway like he’s too shy to enter Riisa’s room. 

“I don’t know if it made it all the way but...” Masaki says. “I sent it all the way to Satoshi.” 

Kazunari nods, imagining the little paper on the wind traveling right into Satoshi’s hand. 

That night he has a dream about the wall opening up. About running freely to the other side. About giving Satoshi his satchel of notes and taking the drawings Satoshi would surely bring for him right into his hands. His hands and Satoshi’s hands. They touch. Fingers dancing against each other and arms winding around and they’re so close. So close together. 

He wakes up with a start, eyes opening to the dark room and curls his arms around his pillow before he goes back to sleep. 

\---

Most of the books that Satoshi and Sho find don’t reveal anything new, but from time to time they find one that makes both of them strangely dizzy. When they find one like that they set it aside and weeks later when they’ve gone through everything in the library they have a pile of five books stranger than all of the others. 

Two are record books, the one with the weather records and another with a record of the population. Before the 40 years mark there seems to be more people than after but right at that time neither of them can look directly at it. 

They keep the books at Satoshi’s house and he can’t help but leaf through them idly when he’s all finished with the colorings for the day and he has nothing but time to get lost in his own thoughts at night. 

He draws a little, but he feels too absent even to do that properly lately. When he does draw though he draws pictures of Jun in flight or Jun sitting on a branch. He draws Jun perched on top of the stack of books and he draws Jun on Kazunari’s shoulder. 

It’s just a few days after his birthday that it arrives. He’s lying in his bed and though the window is open a crack a big gust comes and blows it open in a way he wouldn’t expect wind to naturally do. He wonder if it’s Jun and he hops up out of his bed. It’s early morning and he’s barely awake so even as he approaches the window he’s rubbing his eyes. 

Something tiny is moving towards him and he tries to blink the sleep out of his eyes. Is it Jun? Is he finally coming back to tell Satoshi what happened? 

It isn’t Jun though but a small slip of something floating inside. He thinks it’s a leaf at first but then realizes it’s even lighter and thinner than that. It’s a slip of paper that floats past his hand and darts left and right inside of the bedroom until it settles down under his desk. 

“Who are you?” he asks the paper, and kneels down so he can reach for it. 

When he tells Sho about the note both of them are packed within a day. He doesn’t have any exams until the school year starts after winter breaks into spring and Satoshi’s mother is never strict and never keeps him from going where he likes. 

He is going to tell her vaguely where he’s going but there is a strange feeling inside of him, tugging at the back of his mind. It has to be all of them. Him and Sho and Rie and his mother, it has to be all four of them. He slides his fingers against the paper, feeling strangely like maybe Kazunari touched it before Masaki wrote on it. An indirect touch that he can’t feel or draw or imagine, but knows it’s there all the same. 

He mixes a few more colors on a palette. These ones aren’t for any order, but just for him. He hasn’t made any colors for himself in a while, but these ones are light and airy like the wind that carried the paper and he adds them to the background of his drawing of Jun on the wind. Then he goes to tell Rie and his mother. 

\---

Even when they’re all ready to go Jun isn’t completely recovered. Masaki spends some time resting after sending the paper all the way to the sea. Atsuko and Riisa stay up day and night creating notes so that there is a stock while they’re away. 

It feels somehow like the last time they’re ever going to visit the wall even before Kazunari has taken one step. 

They pack up the book and the five of them start out on the first morning in December. It’s a colder morning than what they’re used to, but this can’t wait until spring. It can’t wait at all. 

The part of the wall they’re aiming for is about the same distance as where they usually meet, but in the other direction and this trip will take longer because Jun can’t move as fast as he could before. Masaki keeps the book in his bag and Jun seems a little weaker when the book is too near. 

The first snow hasn’t yet come this year, but the sky is cloudy and the air is suspiciously still. Kazunari wraps himself tight inside of his coat and wonders when the sky is going to break. 

They make camp under a big tree where several birds have made their home. Jun looks up to the branches. He looks like he wants to take flight then looks down again, quietly helping Kazunari set the tent. 

“I have to tell you something,” Jun says to Kazunari quietly. The rest are preparing dinner and the sound of crackling fire drifts over to where they are. 

“Yeah?” Kazunari says. 

“I... I can’t fly anymore,” Jun says. 

Kazunari stops in the middle of setting a peg in the ground. He knew like the rest of them that Jun hadn’t flown in weeks but he didn’t realize it was because he couldn’t. 

“You tried?” Kazunari asks. 

Jun nods slowly, looking up again at the birds nesting in the trees. 

“You want to join them?” Kazunari asks. 

“No,” Jun shakes his head. “I want to be with you, with all of my friends. But I can’t help like this.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Kazunari shakes his head. They’re going to do this, with or without Jun’s ability to fly. With or without a book and its pages. They’re going to push against the wall until it opens, all of them together. 

\---

Jun feels strange. He hasn’t felt the same since finding the book. Kazunari and Masaki carry the book in their backpacks in shifts because it’s heavy and oddly shaped, but whenever Jun is walking near one of them he feels a heavy feeling in his chest. He probably should stop and rest, but he doesn’t want to slow anyone down so he doesn’t tell them a thing. 

Masaki is tired too and sometimes Jun notices Kazunari getting close to him and holding his arm or his hand, speaking softly to him. 

They’re almost there and it won’t be long now. 

They start on the last leg of their journey after two days. Kazunari hasn’t made any music since they began the trip. It’s odd for him, but instead of making notes and collecting them, he’s humming a melody out into the air. These notes he doesn’t keep, but his voice travels up and out and into the canopy of tree branches above. When Jun asks him what the melody is Kazunari says he doesn’t remember. 

The closer they get to the wall the stranger Jun feels. Coming up on a bend and a twist in the road Jun can see the top of the wall peeking over some thick trees. He has the urge suddenly to fly to the top of the branches and just as the urge hits he’s lost consciousness and fallen over. He can see the world moving slowly underneath him and he can see Masaki scooping him up in his arms. He can see Riisa bringing him a canteen of fresh water and when he finally is conscious enough to be called awake he can smell dinner that Atsuko is making over the fire. They shouldn’t have had to set up camp, but they need to for Jun. The delay can’t be helped. 

“We’ll make it there first thing in the morning,” Kazunari reassures him. 

\---

Satoshi and Sho arrive at the wall on the appointed day with Rie and Matsuyo. The four of them arrive at the place on the map but no one is there to meet them. 

“There are a lot aren’t there?” Rie says, pointing up to the birds in the trees. More are gathered here than Satoshi has ever seen before and he looks through the trees to see if Jun is one of them. It’s hard to tell the difference between them and even harder from this distance. The birds are in nests up high, not coming near but not making any attempt to run away when they set up camp under the trees. 

“Where are they?” Sho asks, finally asking the question on everyone’s lips when evening falls and the others haven’t yet come to meet them. 

Satoshi doesn’t know, can’t know, but somehow it feels like Kazunari’s music isn’t far away and neither is Masaki’s wind. “I think they’ll be here soon,” he says with no certainty. But it’s a feeling deep inside that doesn’t leave him even in the morning when they awake and look at the other side and still no one is there. 

Sho makes breakfast for everyone and Satoshi sits near the wall and draws a pattern in the sand. There doesn’t appear to be a weak spot in this part of the wall like in the other place. He probably can’t touch Kazunari’s fingertip here and no insects can freely walk through. 

“You made a map of the other area right?” his mother asks. 

“Sho and Jun did,” Satoshi nods. “He probably has it with him in his backpack.” 

“I’d like to see it,” she says. Satoshi knows that she wants to see the part of the wall with the connection to the other side and he’s sorry for not bringing her there. He wants to tell her that, to apologize, but she shakes her head as if she knows what it is he’s going to say. 

The birds start to move a little strangely up above, quickly from one tree to the next then flying in quick circles before landing on the branches again. 

“They’re coming!” Rie calls out from where she’s standing up on a tall rock. 

It isn’t only them who come. It’s a flock of birds following behind them. And Jun isn’t one of them. He’s walking with the rest. Slowly, almost limping, and both Satoshi and Sho run to the wall to meet them. 

“Kazunari!” he calls out. “Jun! Masaki!” 

This part of the wall is different from the other two. They can approach and they can get near enough to touch it, but the barrier still shows through in the way the communication is hindered. When Masaki speaks, Satoshi can hardly hear his voice, muffled and with a strange timbre. Satoshi points to Jun and then up to the sky where several birds are flying around. Can he join them? Can he come to Satoshi’s side and tell him what’s wrong? 

Jun shakes his head regretfully and he leans there on Masaki’s shoulder while Masaki’s stray hand points this way and that in reaction to the wall. 

“Something isn’t right,” Sho says. “They didn’t plan to come like this.” 

Matsuyo and Rie stay back and all of them, all nine of them, face the wall. Within reach but not at the same time. 

\---

Masaki sets up camp while Riisa tends to Jun. Kazunari helps his mother make dinner while he looks over at the other side of the wall to see a billow of smoke above their camp as well. He can’t hear Satoshi’s voice but he’s close now and that’s enough to calm Kazunari a little. It’s almost too much, seeing Jun like this and knowing there isn’t anything he can do. 

“The birds are curious aren’t they?” Atsuko says, looking up at the way they hop on the branches above them. Some of them are flying to the other side but most of them are staying here. 

“They’re staying close to Jun,” Kazunari says. Some of them are even turning to look at him and flying low. Riisa builds a campfire and wraps Jun in a warm blanket. He doesn’t say much until nightfall and Kazunari longs to talk to his friends on the other side even after they’ve gone to sleep. 

Kazunari lies awake in his tent with Masaki. The two of them on either side with Jun in the middle. Masaki is sleeping but Jun is just as awake as Kazunari looking up at the top of the tent and the way the moonlight reflects there. 

He reaches next to him and picks up a stick from the ground then lightly pokes Jun’s arm with it. Jun huffs a little like he’s annoyed and that’s how Kazunari knows that he’s okay. When he blinks and looks at Jun again he’s smiling. 

“They came,” Jun says. 

“Yeah,” Kazunari grins, nodding over to Masaki. “He did it.” 

Masaki snores a little and rolls over so his limbs are all askew. Both of them laugh a little. 

A quiet fills the tent when Masaki lands face first on his pillow. Jun reaches out and Kazunari takes his hand in a way that he might not do if anyone was looking. He wants Jun to be okay and now he seems the most okay he’s been in weeks. 

It’s so sudden that the tent seems to shake when Jun sits up. It’s almost as if someone pulls him. Someone or something and the movement wakes up Masaki as well. 

“I remember,” Jun says getting up and out of the tent and wordlessly Kazunari follows him and then Masaki after that. 

Jun runs to the wall with a burst of energy and it’s hard for Kazunari to follow after him in the dark. He runs right then darts to the left then shakes his head and turns around again. He’s looking for something and in the dark Kazunari can hear Masaki’s footsteps behind him. 

“Here!” Jun calls out. “It was right here!” 

He stands in front of a tall tree. The birds in the branches above look down at him without a sound. They know him, Kazunari thinks. Jun said that the birds don’t remember that they were human before, but none of them are acting like birds at all now. 

Kazunari and Masaki catch up and draw heavy breaths. Kazunari wraps his arms around himself almost forgetting to feel the cold. 

“I climbed up this tree,” Jun says. “I climbed up and I saw...” 

He looks up and Kazunari notices on the other side of the wall the birds are stirring as well. Someone lights a match on the other side and Kazunari can see the flame from the corner of his eye and the four on the other side coming out of their tents. 

Jun starts to hum the melody. Kazunari’s melody, the one that made a little pinhole in the weak part of the wall. First the note he made then the ones he made by accident. Then two more follow. Kazunari didn’t write those, but they all flow together so gently, so easily, the notes flow off of Kazunari’s fingertips unconsciously. 

They hover there, all five of them, then they shoot towards the wall in a flash of light. 

“Kazunari!” he hears Satoshi’s voice. 

It feels like the sky is going to break out in rain. Like a lightning bolt is ready to streak across the sky and the thunder to follow after it. The notes gather there at the wall and the impossible begins to happen when it moves. Starts to open like a door and Kazunari is ready to dive through it and over to Satoshi and Sho and his friends there and then the tremors come. 

Not rain from the sky or the shaking of the earth. But the people coming down from the trees and running to the wall to hold it tight with all of their strength and stop it from opening. 

\---

Jun runs. 

Runs through the forest as fast as his feet can carry him. He has to bring a butterfly for his school project and this one flies fast and sure. He runs through the trees and wades through the river. Runs around a craggy rock and through the long grass and wildflowers to a tree. The butterfly lands high up on a branch. He wants this butterfly. It’s colorful and quick and he likes it. 

He’s always been good at climbing trees so he moves swiftly to the top. When he gets there though he loses sight of the butterfly and instead he can’t help but notice a gathering of people near that big strange wall. He supposes he must have seen this wall before, it’s thick and tall and not easily missed, but he can’t remember ever going right up to it before. 

A group of people are gathered near it, one of them holding a thick book. A melody drifts up into the trees. Three simple notes in repetition like a mantra or maybe more like a lullaby. He feels almost dizzy with the notes in his head. Then he sees something his eyes can’t believe and his imagination could never have conjured. 

Before his eyes a man turns into a bird. Jun topples down from the tree but his own wings catch him and he takes flight by instinct and he almost forgets that he’s a boy named Jun but the birds speaking to each other in the trees know about the book. About the inside of the wall. 

It sounds like a bird’s song to anyone else but it’s the story of history. Their history. The birds tell it quickly before they forget about their human lives and start nesting. But Jun remembers. He fights every moment of every day to remember. He has to remember. He’s Jun, he thinks. Every morning he wakes up and says I’m Matsumoto Jun in the sound of a birdsong and after one week he spreads his wings and dives down to where the people are gathered and he knocks the thick book out of their hands. 

It’s too big to hold in his beak so he takes it in his talons, a heavy burden as he flies as far as he can before landing exhausted in a small patch of trees. He hides there for days, every day telling himself again and again. I’m Matsumoto Jun, I’m Matsumoto Jun. When finally he trusts that no one is coming after him and he dares to open the pages. 

It’s difficult to read the words with his bird eyes and he lets out a song that turns into a cry as the tips of his wings turn into fingers and his body is as it used to be. It feels every moment like his memories are going to fade away and desperate not to become like the rest of them he makes a memory so strong, so powerful that no one can ever forget it. 

_There are three of me at the Eastern gate_ he writes using an ashy stone in the corner one of the pages. _And if you find me I’ll tell you all of my tales._

He sings the melody before hiding the book away and though he tries and tries and he remembers his name every morning and every night there are other things that he forgets. 

Now the people who used to be birds all stand at both sides of the wall like reinforcements and Jun finds himself joining them, the reason why coming to him in short waves. 

“I read it,” Jun says. 

Light pours out from the space where the wall is starting to open and some light shoots up and out and into the sky like stars. If only they let the wall open up Kazunari can go to where Satoshi is. 

Masaki moves to Jun’s side and Jun notices that his stray hand is leading him there. Jun takes Masaki’s stray hand in his left and reaches out for Kazunari on the right. 

“I trust him,” Masaki says. Kazunari nods. 

“Everything that was bad in the world,” Jun says. “They put it all inside of the wall. So it wouldn’t hurt anyone.” 

Kazunari looks to the other side where the people gathered there have joined hands as well and Satoshi is between Sho and Rie. Their eyes meet and he won’t look away. 

“It’s peaceful isn’t it?” Jun says. “Your life, all of you. Or it would be if you didn’t know about him.” 

Kazunari keeps his eyes on Satoshi. Knowing that he’s there just across the wall and Kazunari can’t reach him is the heaviest feeling he’s ever felt. 

“I remember,” Atsuko says from Kazunari’s other side. When he looks at her he sees a dampness around her eyes. “We were friends.” 

Her eyes are locked on Matsuyo’s on the other side and Matsuyo calls out with such power in her voice that it reaches across all of the barriers and the escaping light. 

“You were my friend!” she calls out. “I remember you.” 

“I’m older than I look I guess,” Jun says, looking curiously at all of the people and birds who used to be people. It’s the same for them, he thinks. “It happened forty years ago.” 

“She was my friend,” Atsuko says. “When we were children. I haven’t been close to her since before you were born.” 

Kazunari squeezes her hand. “And I’ve never been close to him,” he says, quietly. “I want to open it.” 

“If we open the wall it all comes out,” Jun says. 

Everything, Kazunari thinks, like pain and suffering. All of the bad things that someone was trying to protect them from. But there was a price, he thinks, looking over at his mother who is longing to reach out to her friend. To Sho who wants to learn about everything on this side and the other and Masaki who wants to feel the wind of the sea that Satoshi told them so much about.  
Kazunari wants to make music from the sounds of those big jagged rocks and the waves on the shore. Satoshi wants to paint the green trees and make his own colors from the forests. 

“What if...” Kazunari says. “What if we can live with it?” 

Jun holds tight to his hand. Then he turns and says, “Don’t let go of each other. Stand here at the wall and don’t let go.” 

He moves back and Kazunari takes Masaki’s hand closing the space that Jun left. He flies up into the trees and some of the birds follow him. From the other side some of them come when he calls out from high in the branches. 

“I remember!” Kazunari hears a voice call out and from one side to the other there are voices calling back and forth. Jun told him about how they’ve become birds and forgotten their lives but as the light pours out their memories return. 

Kazunari holds tight to Masaki’s hand. Riisa is on the other side and when a strong wave of light escapes it feels like they have to hold tighter just to stay together. 

“The notes,” Kazunari says. 

“Ah!” Masaki says. 

Whatever was blocking their eyes from reading the book has weakened now and a faint memory plays in Kazunari’s mind. 

“They’re meant to close the wall,” Kazunari says. “But they can open it too if they’re in the right order.” 

Kazunari hums the melody. The notes he created were enough to make a pinhole. 

“I don’t mind,” Riisa says. “If we live with the things inside of the wall I don’t mind.” 

“Me too,” Masaki says. 

“We’ll be better,” Atsuko says. “Stronger.” 

The birds come back and gather at the place with the light pouring out. 

The people from the villages nearby have come from their houses now. Drawn by the light or the sounds of the melody or the thunder shaking the sky. 

“It’s my sister,” Jun says when a woman approaches the wall on Satoshi’s side. She takes the hand of the next one in line and smiles at him in recognition. “I’m Matsumoto Jun!” he calls out. “I never forgot!” 

A wind whips around them and Masaki lets go of Kazunari just for a moment to hold his hand up and try to calm it.

“It has to be done now,” Kazunari says. 

“Kazunari!” Satoshi calls out. He plants his foot firmly on the ground and a color comes out. It’s the color of the wall, of the sky and the light. It’s the color of all of the stories that were lost. And almost naturally Kazunari makes a melody to match.

“We’ll protect you,” Jun says. “Me and the other birds. We can’t stop what’s coming out but we’re part of the wall and we can take some of it inside.” 

Forty years of memories strain against the barrier. 

“Play it now,” Jun says. 

Kazunari closes his eyes and releases the notes. One by one until there are five and they meet in the middle with Satoshi’s color. They stop in front of the wall much like they had the time before but this time all five of them are together and there is a bigger force behind them. The vow of protection from the birds and the will of all of the people to live with both the good and the bad, the beautiful and the terrible. And with all of that, the wall begins to open. 

First the light comes out dangerously shooting this way and that and the birds draw it towards them, some of them take the light and run away on foot and some of them spread their wings and fly. When the first wave has come out some of the people start to run through. Jun takes in all of the light he can bear and runs to the other side to wrap his arms tight around his sister. Masaki and Riisa step through still hand in hand to meet Sho and Rie and Matsuyo and Atsuko hold tight to each other like a wave will take them if they let go. 

And that’s when Kazunari finds himself in front of Satoshi. The birds flying all around them, a flood of people crashing in the middle to sort out who is theirs. And Kazunari first holds out a hand like he doesn’t believe this is really happening when Satoshi pulls him into a kiss that takes all of his breath away. His arms, wrists, shoulders, that one fingertip that Kazunari has touched before. Satoshi feels like every one of his colors come to life and it’s that same warm feeling that wraps all around him when he looks at Satoshi’s drawings. The same feeling that made melodies float off of his fingertips. This is Satoshi in the opening where a wall used to be. “I want to see the trees,” Satoshi says messily against Kazunari’s lips and Kazunari takes Satoshi’s hand tight and pulls him into his forest. 

\---

It takes some time before the world settles. 

There are some problems with weather. The ocean waves are strong and sometimes the rain falls hard and stops again. In the villages around where the wall opened, Masaki tends to the wind. Atsuko finds some old books with healing melodies and she plays them in the villages that still have unrest. 

Kazunari sees the ocean for the first time and he makes a melody that sounds like the waves. It sounds like Satoshi. The melody has a healing property that he didn’t even intend when he made it but he collects the notes in a pouch for his mother to take with her to the villages after Satoshi paints each note with a touch of a new color. 

Bit by bit, piece by piece, all around the world the wall comes down. Years later it’s only a line there on the earth then the grass and the trees grow over it and people and birds alike can cross. 

The new history books are nothing like the old. They can be read by anyone, young and old, and without the strange side effect of headaches. The new history books start appearing on bookshelves and in libraries and schools in the years after the wall disappears. On the inside cover is a list of the names of the people who compiled the book and on that list is the name of Sakurai Sho. The one who compiled the maps from then and now and changed the way the world looked on paper or a globe. He works as a professor of new history close to the sea where the old Ohno house still stands. 

The Ohno house isn’t a shop for colors anymore but a collaboration between Atsuko and Matsuyo and Rie works as an apprentice there. At the seaside they can send colors and music across the ocean on boats and Masaki comes to help them push the wind into the sails. 

Masaki stays in the village in the forest with Riisa. She takes a liking to long bell-like sounds so they turn the Ninomiya house into a windchime shop with Masaki coming to give movement to her tones. 

But Masaki stays with the birds sometimes since his hand still bears a piece of the wall. The birds can still change and shift but many of them choose to live as humans now after finding the ones they love again. Even the ones that take the form of birds still live in a house instead of a nest. Jun moves into his sister’s home, but keeps a nest in the trees when he needs to fly there and see the world from a higher angle. 

Masaki sometimes hikes to the tree that Jun stays in. He’ll lean silently against the trunk and watch the world move without being hindered. 

“Is it ever too much?” Masaki asks when Jun flies down and his wings become arms and he lands on his feet. 

“It’s alright,” Jun says. “We lived peacefully as birds too didn’t we? And we could fly from one side to the other whenever we wanted.” 

“It feels weird sometimes,” Masaki says, holding up his hand. “Funny like it tickles.” 

Jun takes Masaki’s hand in his and looks at it curiously. The light is there even though he can’t see it as well with his human eyes. “I can probably take it out and keep it for you,” Jun says. 

Masaki shakes his head. Even if only a little he wants to do his part to protect everyone along with the birds. 

There is another place not mentioned in the history books. The place itself is written on the pages and marked on the maps but the little house that stands there now isn’t of importance to history even though the importance of the little house is immeasurable. It’s a house that Atsuko and Matsuyo call on when they have particularly difficult orders. This is the only house where music and color blend together to make melodies no one has ever heard and shades no one has ever seen. 

The house stands there in the middle of an old line erased by time and underbrush. Smoke comes out of the chimney in swirls of reds and blues and greens and Riisa’s windchime hanging outside the door makes a sound that twists with the melody coming out from the windows and ends up in an accidental harmony. 

“They’re coming,” Satoshi says from behind his easel where he mixes colors together on a palette. 

“For the order?” Kazunari says, a little irritated. “They didn’t give me much time to get it finished...” 

He’s trying to make notes as quickly as he can and separating them into little pouches to be picked up and delivered. He keeps the pouches next to the bookshelves now filled with thick books. Each one is a song like the books his grandfather made. Each one with notes that tell a story on the pages that his mother flips through whenever she comes to visit. 

“No... not them,” Satoshi says. “ _They’re_ coming.” 

“Ah,” Kazunari says, finishing up the last of the notes and going over to where Satoshi sits behind the easel. There is a smudge of paint on his cheek and Kazunari thinks about cleaning it off but decides he likes it better there on Satoshi. 

It’s once a year in spring when all nine of them gather there. Sakurai Sho from the new history books and Aiba Masaki the one who keeps the wind. Matsumoto Jun, the bird who never forgot. 

They haven’t announced the day they’d arrive but Kazunari is so in tune with the sounds here that he can hear when something is different. The swaying blades of grass and rhythm of their feet on the rocky trail. 

“But since they’re not here yet...” he says, pulling Satoshi up and into a kiss, paint smudge and all, relishing that he can do this any and every time he wants to now. 

This isn’t written in the history books but it’s tucked away into the story of how the wall opened up. Kazunari didn’t particularly want to be noted on the pages and neither did Satoshi so while the melody that opened up the world is written down to be kept in memory this little house can stand here quietly. Peacefully. In a place where a pill bug once walked through to the other side.


End file.
